Laden with bundles of belongings, a mass of Venezuelan migrants cautiously pick their way across a frothing river. Grandmothers, pregnant women, toddlers: They clutch at each other’s hands for stability, their “bridge” just a collection of sandbags heaped in the water. Some slouch from the weight of children on their shoulders. Everyone is haggard, unsmiling.
From across the water, the prospect of safe asylum beckons. Government inefficiency, however, will force most of these migrants out of the asylum application process. As a result, they will lose the opportunity to be recognized as “refugees,” a status which would guarantee them significant long-term rights under international law. Legally, these Venezuelans are refugees in many Latin American countries. What, then, accounts for the frequent rejection of asylum applications in places like Colombia, Brazil, and Chile?
The answer is rife with paradox. Despite having one of the most rigorous refugee protection frameworks in the world, Latin American countries have massively defective domestic asylum infrastructures that currently prohibit Venezuelan refugees from obtaining refugee status and enjoying the right to work and move freely.
On its surface, Latin America appears to be the pinnacle of refugee protection. In response to refugee flows from war-torn Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala, some 16 countries in the region met in 1984 to ratify the Cartagena Declaration, a landmark document that expanded the definition of “refugee” beyond its previous narrow one under international law. Latin American countries have also convened in Quito, Ecuador on numerous occasions to discuss the problem of refugee protection and plan coordinated collective responses. When the Venezuelan economy collapsed in 2015, prompting the exodus of some 3.3 million Venezuelan citizens, this regional solidarity manifested itself in the form of short-lived open-border policies and seemingly welcoming attitudes in neighboring countries.
Such ostensible magnanimity starkly contrasts with the bleak reality now facing Venezuelan asylum applicants. In Peru, for example, only 500 out of more than 113,000 asylum applications had been processed by the end of 2018. Significant processing backlogs similarly plague Brazil’s asylum system, where 14 government officials have the task of adjudicating 56,000 claims. And in Colombia, most migrants eschew the inefficient procedure altogether, opting instead to apply for a temporary residence permit that affords them the right to work. However, those who apply for asylum in Colombia are not allowed to seek employment while their application is pending.
Even more obstacles await these asylum-seekers. Inflammatory nationalist rhetoric and mounting xenophobia have precipitated the recent adoption of stringent immigration controls in several Latin American nations. Peru and Chile, whose borders were once porous, now impose strict passport and visa requirements upon Venezuelans wishing to enter their territories. Given that the Venezuelan government does not even issue passports to many of its own citizens, such strict regulations effectively preclude legal immigration for refugees. Security and documentation concerns are often cited to justify these policies. Severe economic concerns also play a role in restricting immigration; many governments wish to limit the number of newcomers clamoring for already scarce national resources. Nevertheless, these border requirements cannot staunch the flow of Venezuelan refugees. Instead, they just push immigration underground, which prevents governments from effectively tracking their populations and increases the likelihood that refugees will be exploited or recruited by guerrilla forces or other violent groups at the border.
Latin America’s increasingly reluctant stance towards accepting Venezuelan refugees mocks the “regional solidarity” model expressed at convenings like Quito. This is all the more concerning given that the crisis will likely continue unabated for some time. Currently, most refugees are offered only ad hoc temporary residences and work permits, which are granted outside of the official asylum system. These permits are limited in scope and duration and will rapidly prove inadequate in the coming years. The solution should not be more restrictions. Rather, Latin America must adopt a standardized asylum system.
Reluctance to embrace such a system stems from both xenophobia and economic concerns. But locking out these migrants, or admitting them but refusing to let them work, will not repair these countries’ struggling economies. On the contrary, substantial research shows that refugees constitute a frequently untapped source of tremendous economic growth for countries willing to integrate them into their workforces. Furthermore, a uniform asylum procedure will better ensure that those who can work actually do so. In countries like Peru, the government issues impromptu work permits to refugees at the border that are often rejected by cautious employers who have never seen such documentation before. This is a lamentable waste of economic opportunity. If the asylum procedure were made consistent across Latin America, work permits would be widely accepted, thereby improving refugees’ access to legal employment and stimulating Latin American economies.
A uniform regional asylum structure would also ensure a more even dispersion of Venezuelan refugees across Latin America by allowing easier travel to countries not directly adjacent to Venezuela. In Colombia, for example, there is a sizable portion of refugees who wish to travel to Chile to rejoin their families but are not allowed to move freely within Colombia. This regularization of asylum systems would also allow these refugees to be identified efficiently and make possible their movement to safe third-party countries.
Historical precedent legitimizes the proposed model. Since 1991, the trade bloc Mercosur—which is made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay—has reduced immigration restrictions for its members. And well-attended conferences have shown that sentiments of regional solidarity are abundant, at least in theory. Most countries have asylum systems in place; they just need to be updated along regional human rights standards and streamlined to ensure their utilization and efficiency. The U.N. Refugee Agency and other N.G.O.s can help implement this updated asylum structure to alleviate already overburdened governments in the region. Grounding the model in the idea of reciprocity would also incentivize its adoption. For instance, Colombia has been willing to accept large numbers of Venezuelan refugees because Venezuela hosted a sizable segment of its population during Colombia’s civil war that began in 1964. Promoting such “brotherhood” to the region as a whole would curb xenophobia and promote generosity toward refugees.
Structural inefficiency should not be the reason why Venezuelans are refused refugee status. A strong protective attitude already exists in Latin America; the region just needs a strong asylum system to match it.
Photo: Image via michael_swan (Flickr)