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.
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.