Caracas Chronicles

Three months after the July 28 elections, hardly any country in the democratic international community of the Americas recognizes Nicolás Maduro as the elected president. Massive national protests against electoral fraud have triggered unprecedented repression in 21st-century Venezuela. As a result, over 2,400 people have been jailed for political reasons, including at least 70 adolescents, and at least 25 people have been killed amid this wave of persecution.

In this context, there has been an increase in the number of Venezuelans seeking international protection. In Brazil, after the July 28 elections, asylum applications from Venezuelans in the border city of Pacaraima rose by over 18%, reaching 1,933 in August alone. Meanwhile, in Colombia, from July 28 to September 19, 2024, 1,693 Venezuelans applied for asylum.

Authoritarian backlash and Venezuelan migration

Following condemnations of electoral fraud from several countries, Maduro’s government severed diplomatic ties with Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, and El Salvador. This decision led to the withdrawal of Venezuelan diplomatic personnel and the closure of even more embassies and consulates, further compounding the already severe challenges for millions of Venezuelans abroad who need essential documents or services.

Additionally, direct flight routes between Venezuela and countries like the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Peru have been suspended, significantly increasing the cost of the few routes that still operate, such as Caracas-Bogotá. This situation worsens the difficulties for Venezuelans seeking to emigrate or reunite with their families.

This consular crisis profoundly affects the millions of Venezuelans who have migrated. Over 1.6 million live in Peru, while nearly 800,000 reside in the United States. Other countries, including Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica, and Uruguay, host hundreds of thousands more.

Key services that can no longer be processed include passport renewals, the granting of legal powers, the issuance of apostilles, the registration of births abroad, and the certification of licenses and academic degrees.

Regional responses to migration

Colombia’s Temporary Protection Statute for Venezuelan Migrants (ETPV), widely praised by the international community for its 10-year term allowing Venezuelans access to rights and the possibility of transitioning to permanent residency, has faced setbacks. Two years into the government of Gustavo Petro, the decision was made to discontinue this regularization mechanism and fragment its proposal. At the end of September, the PEP-Tutor program was approved, which will allow the regularization of parents and guardians of minors covered by the statute until December 31, 2023, but requiring apostilled birth certificates.

Furthermore, the Colombian government announced a public consultation in late September on a new regularization mechanism called the “Special Visitor Visa.” This visa would impose difficult requirements for Venezuelans to meet, such as apostilled criminal records and employment verification letters. It remains unclear whether this two-year visa, which would not be renewable, involves any costs or what type of identity documents would be required. It’s worth noting that the ETPV, which regularized nearly two million Venezuelans, was free, did not require criminal records or apostilles, and has a 10-year validity.

In Brazil, one of the few countries with a consistently open approach to Venezuelan displacement, authorities increased attention at the border following the post-July 28 surge in migration, allowing Venezuelans to apply for asylum or residency.

Ecuador established an extraordinary regularization process; however, it is only available to those Venezuelans who already hold an expired “Certificate of Migratory Permanence Registration” and have not obtained a visa.

In Argentina, following the closure of the Venezuelan consulate, the government implemented a Special Migration Regularization Regime, which allows applications with expired passports or ID cards and offers other flexibilities. This regime is available to those who were in Argentina before September 20, 2024, and “do not meet the requirements to regularize their status through the general regime,” as well as those who enter the country regularly after that date. The downside is that this regime only lasts 90 days.

Meanwhile, Panama has allowed Venezuelans to complete their paperwork using expired passports, but only for the next six months.

In Chile, while there has been some relaxation of requirements for Venezuelans in the country to travel with expired documents, the country has tightened its border controls following the July 28 election in anticipation of a potential mass influx of Venezuelans. The increased military presence at the borders of Chile and Peru, which also ramped up its border control in this context, could deter many Venezuelans in need of international protection, pushing them to opt for irregular entries, which could lead to cases of forced return or deportation, as the R4V Platform explains.

In the United States, the government announced it will not extend humanitarian parole for Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Cubans who entered under this program, forcing many to change their immigration status or leave the country. Since 2022, over 100,000 Venezuelans have been allowed to live and work legally in the U.S. under parole after fleeing Venezuela in an emergency. Those Venezuelans who arrived before July 31, 2023, can still apply for TPS (Temporary Protected Status). Additionally, the humanitarian parole program, which was temporarily suspended, has been reactivated after a review, but only for two years and with no right to extension.

All talk, no action?

The region continues to lack a unified stance on Venezuelan displacement, despite the existence of liberal frameworks for refugees and migrants, multilateral platforms such as the Los Angeles Declaration or the Quito Process that aim for coordinated, flexible migration responses, and the ongoing Cartagena+40 process addressing “the changing challenges of displacement.”

The R4V Platform has urged governments to extend the validity of expired Venezuelan passports and documents and to review and relax regularization timelines. It also calls for an end to forced returns of Venezuelans, given the severe situation in their home country. However, as this analysis shows, not all governments have followed these recommendations.

This highlights once again the gap between rhetoric and action. While many governments in the Americas have condemned the egregious fraud and human rights violations in Venezuela—with exceptions like Colombia, which has yet to condemn the latter—it is essential for these denunciations to translate into policies that facilitate better regularization and integration of displaced people. This is even more urgent after the regime has shown its inflexible stance toward a peaceful, negotiated transition to democracy. In this context, more repression and displacement are to be expected, which is why these efforts must not only make noise but also bear fruit.