Colombia: next massive regularization of Venezuelan migrants
December 2019 (illustration): queue a few meters from the border between Venezuela and Colombia.
Only the sick, the elderly and students are allowed to cross it.
REUTERS / Carlos Eduardo Ramirez
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
Colombian President Ivan Duque announced yesterday Monday the upcoming regularization of nearly a million undocumented migrants arriving in the country to flee the crisis in neighboring Venezuela.
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The Colombian authorities will create a "temporary protection status" for Venezuelans and launch "a process of regularization of these migrants who are in our country", announced President Ivan Duque in a joint declaration in Bogota with the United Nations High Commissioner United for Refugees, Filippo Grandi.
According to the Colombian head of state, Venezuelans will enjoy temporary protection status for ten years, during which they can apply for a resident visa if they decide to stay in the country.
Those who enter on a regular basis for the next two years will have the same policy applied.
Con el # EstatutoDeProtección temporal tendemos una hoja de ruta para la regularización de los hermanos venezolanos que huyen hacia Colombia, saber quiénes son, qué edad tienen, dónde están y sus condiciones socioeconómicas para brindarles más atención estabilidad y un.
pic.twitter.com/1ipCS7ZzmX
- Iván Duque 🇨🇴 (@IvanDuque) February 8, 2021
Colombia is the main destination for Venezuelan refugees: around 1.7 million of them are there, more than half (56%) of whom are undocumented.
In 2018, President
Juan Manuel Santos
had already carried out the massive regularization of some 400,000 Venezuelan migrants who had been granted a two-year residence permit, before handing over the presidency to Ivan Duque.
The Covid-19 pandemic complicates the integration of migrants
This announcement comes after President Duque was severely criticized in December for his intention to exclude undocumented migrants from the mass vaccination campaign against the coronavirus which is due to begin on February 20 in Colombia, recalls Agence France Presse.
The Colombian president then backtracked and decided to ask for international aid to vaccinate these illegal migrants.
The UNHCR chief recalled that the Venezuelan population in Colombia is particularly vulnerable to Covid-19 because “working massively in the informal sector and facing situations of abuse, exploitation and discrimination”.
Hoy Colombia dio un ejemplo a la región y al mundo entero al otorgar estatus de protección temporal por 10 años a todos los Venezolanos en su territorio.
Mi agradecimiento al Presidente @IvanDuque, a su gobierno y al pueblo de Colombia por este acto histórico y generoso.
pic.twitter.com/Pp8YaKomKJ
- Filippo Grandi (@FilippoGrandi) February 8, 2021
Colombia and Venezuela, which no longer maintain diplomatic relations, share a porous 2,200 km border, closed since March 2020 due to the pandemic.
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See also
: Venezuela denounces a "coup d'état by the sea" coming from Colombia
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Colombia
Venezuela
Coronavirus
Refugees
International Migration