BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) – Colombia said on Monday it would register hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees in Venezuela currently in the country without documents in an attempt to give them legal residence permits and facilitate their access to health care and legal employment.
President Ivan Duque said Venezuelan migrants who are in the country illegally are eligible for ten-year residence permits through a new temporary protection law, while migrants currently living temporarily will be able to extend their stay.
The new measure could benefit up to one million Venezuelan citizens currently living in Colombia without proper documents, as well as hundreds of thousands who have to extend temporary visas.
President Duque announced the protection measure in a stately government palace in Bogota while standing with Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
“As we take this historic and transcendental step for Latin America, we hope that other countries will follow our example,” Duque said in a room full of ambassadors and diplomats, who were invited to watch the announcement.
Grandi said the new policy would improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of poor people, calling it an ‘extraordinary gesture’ of humanity, pragmatism and commitment to human rights.
The Colombian government estimates that 1.8 million Venezuelans currently live in the country, and that 55% of them do not have proper residence papers. Most have arrived since 2015 to escape hyperinflation, food shortages and an increasingly authoritarian government.
Duque said the registration of these undocumented immigrants and refugees would benefit Colombia’s security agencies and that the provision of social services, including coronavirus vaccines, would be more efficient.
The government has said Venezuelans arriving in Colombia legally within the next two years will also be allowed to apply for temporary protection.
The new policy follows after Donald Trump signed an executive order in the last days of his presidency that halted the deportations of tens of thousands of Venezuelans living in the United States.
The new law on the temporary protection of Colombia will be implemented because migrants leaving Venezuela find it more difficult to settle in other South American countries, due to the closure of the land border and the increasing sentiment against immigrants.
In Ecuador, hundreds of Venezuelans are currently stranded along the country’s southern border following Peru’s decision to send tanks and troops to the area to stop illegal border crossings.
Other popular destinations for Venezuelan migrants include Panama and Chile, which have imposed visa requirements that make it more difficult for Venezuelans to relocate.
According to the United Nations, there are 4.7 million Venezuelan migrants and other refugees in other Latin American countries after fleeing the economic collapse and political divide in their homeland. Colombia is home to more than a third of them.
Duque said that while Colombia’s decision would offer some relief, he did not expect it to stop the Venezuelan exodus.
“If we want to stop this crisis, countries need to think about how to end the dictatorship in Venezuela,” he said. “We need to think about how to form a transitional government and organize free elections.”