Nowhere to GoNovember/December 2019 129lum and, from January 2017 until December 2018, oering Venezuelan
migrants temporary access to work, education, and banking services.
But by the end o 2018, Peru suspended that practice amid concerns
that it was creating an incentive for more Venezuelans to come. In 2017,
Brazil began oering Venezuelan migrants two-year residency visas
and gave all asylum seekers from Venezuela access to work permits and
basic services. In 2018, however, the governor o Roraima State ap-
pealed to the Supreme Federal Court to close the border until the
conditions for “humanitarian reception” were in place. (The court dis-
missed the case.) Brazil has also tried,
with limited success, to carry out an in-
ternal relocation scheme, in which
around 5,000 Venezuelans in the border
area have been transferred to 17 other
states across the country. For its part,
Ecuador initially welcomed Áeeing Venezuelans but eventually intro-
duced stricter border controls in August 2018. In January, the country
witnessed a xenophobic backlash after a Venezuelan migrant killed his
pregnant Ecuadorian girlfriend; in the face o the resulting anger and
violence, many Venezuelans left Ecuador for Colombia.
Meanwhile, international organizations have struggled to even de-
Äne the crisis in South America, much less deal with it. Until this past
spring, the £ High Commissioner for Refugees had only vaguely
noted that the region was experiencing a “migrant crisis.” But on May
21, under pressure from human right activists, the £ ̈ released a
statement suggesting that most Venezuelan migrants were actually
refugees in need o international protection. The World Bank has
characterized the Venezuelan migration as “mainly based on economic
reasons but with the characteristics o a refugee situation in terms o
the speed o inÁux and levels o vulnerability.”
And yet everyone dealing with the situation on the ground agrees that
a humanitarian tragedy is unfolding. On the border in Cúcuta, Colom-
bia, around 50,000 people cross the checkpoint each day at the Simón
Bolívar International Bridge. They set out with suitcases, bags, and hand
trolleys to collect food and basic provisions that cannot be easily found
in Venezuela. They buy and sell in Cúcuta’s La Parada market or eat at
the soup kitchens run by organizations aliated with the World Food
Program, which serve a total o 8,000 meals per day. Up to 3,000 o those
who cross every day wind up staying in Colombia. Those with passports
Most South American
migrants rely on their kith
and kin to survive.