Why aren't more Venezuelans applying for asylum?

WASHINGTON — Venezuelans have poured out of their country, fleeing a decimated economy, collapsed health care system, political violence, and human rights abuses. More than 4.7 million Venezuelans have already left and nearly 2 million others are expected to depart this year, with most settling across the Latin American region, which has one of the most liberal definitions for what qualifies someone as a refugee. But very few people are applying for asylum there. “The thing that the people need is a status, a regular status, and if the government has provided that, then maybe you don’t want to ask for asylum.” --— Felipe Muñoz, adviser for the Colombian-Venezuelan border to the Colombian president International protections are available to those who are displaced from their home country and cannot return. But instead of formally seeking asylum under the expanded definition for refugees that was set out by Latin American countries in the 1984 Cartagena Declaration, many Venezuelans are opting to apply for other legalization measures that regional governments have implemented to regularize asylum-seekers and migrants and keep track of the people inside their borders. Amid the mass exodus of Venezuelans, there is irregular migration — people who do not have valid visas or even passports to enter nearby countries and have thus crossed at places other than formal border points. According to Felipe Muñoz, adviser to Colombia’s president on border issues, only 1,700 Venezuelans applied for asylum in Colombia in 2018. In 2019, that number leaped to 10,000 of the estimated 1.6 million in the country, but Muñoz said that many people who are staying in Colombia long-term still prefer temporary resident permits over making a formal asylum claim. The Colombian government has legalized approximately 600,000 Venezuelans with several classes of temporary resident permits, and plans to expand the categories of eligible people in the coming weeks. These temporary measures can be a faster way to legalize and integrate people into a state’s education, health care, and social protection systems. “We think that we have offered a more general system of protections that maybe sometimes are better than the process of asylum case-by-case,” Muñoz told Devex. “The thing that the people need is a status, a regular status, and if the government has provided that, then maybe you don’t want to ask for asylum. Because this asylum has international regulations, the conditions that maybe you can’t return to your country, and we think the majority of the people still think that if the situation in Venezuela change[s] some day, they want just to return.” A history of hospitality The Cartagena Declaration was developed during a turbulent period in the region, when civil strife led many to flee to other countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Modeled after a similar idea in the Organization of African Unity, the document expanded the traditional definition for refugees to be “persons who have fled their country because their lives, security or freedom have been threatened by generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive violation of human rights or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order.” While nonbinding, the Cartagena Declaration has been incorporated into laws in 14 states, according to UNHCR. Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, said that it “looks great on paper,” even if it hasn’t often been invoked. “The Cartagena Declaration actually influenced countries' willingness to find some legal status to take people in,” Selee said. “[It] is actually really important in Latin America and the Caribbean because it shaped a sense of obligation for taking neighbors in when they’re fleeing from other countries, but it hasn’t necessarily been implemented in asylum law.” Just because countries have signaled that they will consider a broader definition for refugees does not mean asylum systems in the region are prepared to process them, according to Selee. He said most governments do not have systems that are developed enough to process people in the numbers at which Venezuelans are arriving. “Even if Colombia had the world's greatest asylum system, you just can’t process a million and a half people in two years, right? The numbers are too much,” Selee said. “But the reality is that most of these countries didn’t have very efficient asylum systems.” Some countries in the region do have higher rates of asylum applications, such as Mexico, which Selee said has accepted about 99% of Venezuelans requesting protections. Political and economic considerations Governments may find difficulty in getting their citizens to accept legalization measures that grant Venezuelan migrants access to state benefits. Formally designating someone as a refugee means governments have a responsibility to care for them, Selee said, and several countries in the region are seeing a rising level of xenophobia. “That’s a kind of permanence and obligation of the state that those governments may not be prepared to meet. Giving massive numbers of people refugee protection may require them to assume a burden that they’re not equipped to carry out over the long term, and it becomes politically difficult to sustain,” Selee said. “You have a lot of governments who say, ‘We kind of know we need to do this, but we’re not willing to give refuge to everyone — refugee status — because it's just too much.’ But they’ll find some solutions like the temporary measures.” Venezuelans who migrate can also shy away from applying for asylum due to economic reasons. In some countries, asylum applicants cannot legally work while their application makes its way through the system. Opting for other temporary protections can give migrants the latitude to seek employment, keeping them out of the informal economy and better able to support themselves. “When you ask for an asylum-seeker status, you can’t work until the decision has been decided in the final step. And of course if you compare with the situation that we offer with the special permit, it's even better,” Muñoz said. “This is a legal discussion that is still lively in the region.” Brazil, Peru, and Costa Rica give asylum-seekers work cards, for example, but Mexico doesn’t allow those who have applied to be employed. An exception in Brazil Brazil is one country in the region that has elected to legalize large numbers of Venezuelans through its asylum system. In December, Brazil’s National Committee for Refugees decided to recognize roughly 21,000 Venezuelans as refugees all at once rather than on a case-by-case basis. Those who wish to seek the protections in the future will be able to do so through an accelerated process that won’t require an interview, given that they have a Venezuelan identity document and hold no other residence permit in Brazil, among other criteria. Miguel Pachioni, spokesperson for UNHCR Brazil, said he expects the country to continue making mass asylum designations, though each of these could be for fewer people compared with December’s. He said that those now arriving in Brazil — an average of 500 Venezuelans a day — tend to be much more vulnerable than the ones who arrived at the start of the crisis, so their protection needs can be more acute. UNHCR is providing technical assistance to the Brazilian government — at the central, state, and municipal levels — for its asylum system, but the agency is also working to engage actors from the private sector, NGOs, and academia to help integrate Venezuelans who have been granted protections. “What UNHCR is doing is actually collating all the different players in Brazil to work together for one single strategy, which is aiming to provide dignity and a better perspective of inclusion for refugees,” Pachioni said. “We’re expecting for the government to carry on this great example not only for Brazil, but for Latin America as a whole … dealing with the influx of Venezuelans.”