2023-07-15 01:34:37
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Some have “the ongoing process, but no evolution.” Others had their “system profile wiped.” Some, on the contrary, need to “delete it to start over”. There are also those who did not “renew their visa, without explanation.” Others even already have their permit printed, or so the system says, but “nobody knows where it is.”
The testimonies of Venezuelans in Colombia without regular status accumulate daily. There are thousands of migrants who during the last year have not been able to renew their residence permit and thousands more who, since they entered the country, have not been able to formalize it.
Something happens. Nobody really knows what it is but the days of agile regularizations that classified Colombia as a “generous”, “open” country and a “world example” towards Venezuelan migration seem to have been left behind.
The first evidence can be seen every morning at the entrance of Migración Colombia on Calle 100 in Bogotá, a street stall that is filled with dozens of Venezuelans desperate for their immigration issue.
“They tell me that I do not appear in the system,” says one. “Looks like I have to redo the biometric,” says another. Each story is unique, but they all have a bureaucratic tangle that is difficult to understand. They speak of “incidence”, “resolution”, “guardianship”, “safe conduct”, “illegal migration”. They cite several acronyms: RUMV, PQRS, ETPV, PEP.
They enter, hand in hand with the street carts that sell coffee and empanadas in the lines, into the complex framework of the Colombian State. Everything to give them what they call “the plastic”, the card that gives them permission to be here.
Colombia has received almost half of the 7 million Venezuelans who left the country due to the crisis.
Initially, the governments of Juan Manuel Santos and Iván Duque established protocols, entities, and legal resources for migrants to formalize their status in order to work, receive education, and health. Thanks to that, the country received resources and congratulations from abroad.
But since Gustavo Petro came to power, a little less than a year ago, “the process stalled”according to Gaby Arenas, a Venezuelan social leader who accompanies thousands of compatriots in their process.
“They don’t want us here anymore. If there is no way of regularization, it is because they don’t want you. Whoever arrives today has nothing to do. It will end up being easier to become a Spanish national,” he complains.
Petro, however, has not stated that it wants to interrupt the regularizations. He has said that, as part of his rapprochement with President Nicolás Maduro and the reestablishment of bilateral relations frozen for years, wants to promote the “voluntary return” of Venezuelans.
BBC Mundo contacted the Presidency, Foreign Ministry and Migration Colombia to obtain a response to the complaints of dozens of testimonies collected, but, at the time of publishing this report, the requests were unsuccessful.
EPA
“In the background”
Carlos Fernando García is the political scientist that Petro appointed, two months after he came to power, at the head of Migration Colombia, an entity attached to the Foreign Ministry.
In a presentation before Congress, García, who was in exile for more than a decade, maintained that he had arrived at an unstructured and collapsed entity.
“Almost 600 positions are needed in Migration, many of which are in posts in border areas,” he said.
He added that in 2021 the Colombia Migration software to grant the Temporary Protection Permit (PPT) collapsed. “The new government is setting up a new technological system,” she said.
“If we leave a number of people undocumented, we are fostering a black market in labor.in commerce, at work,” he said. “Irregularity strengthens the mafia phenomena of migrant smuggling that neither the police nor the authorities have the power to control.”
The rapprochement with Maduro, the reopening of the border and the reestablishment of consular and commercial relations with Venezuela have been one of the main foreign policies of Petro, who has also tried to show himself as a mediator between the opposition and Chavismo.
“But the migration agenda has gone into the background”says Ronal Rodríguez, a researcher at the Venezuelan Observatory at the Universidad del Rosario, in Bogotá.
“The issue disappeared, they dismantled the Border Management (a Commission of the Presidency) and in the Foreign Ministry the issue is focused on a vice-chancellor,” he adds.
Reuters Petro and its foreign minister, Álvaro Leyva, have dedicated a lot of effort to Venezuela. But not precisely with the interest in migrants.
Jessica Corredor, a consultant on immigration issues, assures that “the issue was frozen for almost a year,” in the sense that “it passed to a ministry of Equality that is just now (one year after Petro took office) to be structured”.
And he adds: “The last figures published by Migration are from February 2022. The government put together some figures in October, but nobody understands why they were taken down from the page. Data is being made invisible“.
The BBC asked Migration Colombia for exact figures of regularizations during the last year, but received no response.
If it is impossible to know how many Venezuelans there are in Colombia -it is estimated between 2 and 3 million- it is even more difficult to know how many are without legal immigration status: estimates range between 300,000 and 800,000.
It’s also hard to really know why Petro might want to push immigration aside. But among the hypotheses is her search for having good relations with Maduro, a key player in the peace negotiations with the guerrillas and critic of the Venezuelan diaspora.
Getty Images The times of mass regularizations have apparently ended.
“Disappointed in the Colombian State”
In general, Venezuelans have three ways to legalize their status in Colombia: relatives of Colombians who went to Venezuela during the war can be naturalized, those who have been here for several years and have a job can get visas, and everyone else can choose to the PPT, the card that gives rights to education, work and health for a certain time.
The three processes, according to the Venezuelan organizations consulted by BBC Mundo, have become complicated in the last year, after several years have passed in which the process was relatively efficient.
Yessica Carolina Poveda is a 31-year-old Venezuelan who migrated to the border city of Cúcuta two years ago with her five children and husband, who is Colombian. All children already have nationality. The eldest, 14 years old, dreams of being a soccer player and for the last month she wanted to come to Bogotá to play an official match for the first time.
“But since I haven’t been able to get the PPT and I’m not legalized, they didn’t accept permission to let her travel and so she couldn’t go to play the game,” says Poveda, who currently lives in a rented apartment from which she was asked leave in a week and have no money –or work– to move to another space.
“Most likely, unfortunately, we will all have to return to Venezuela.“, he assures.
Reuters The vast majority of Venezuelans in Colombia work informally.
Surveys estimate that between 75 and 85% of Venezuelans in Colombia want to stay.
The case of Maru Juárez, 47, is different from that of Poveda: she arrived in the country four years ago with a formal job in an NGO with which she managed to get the visa twice. She pays taxes, health, has a bank account and considers herself part of the Colombian system.
“But in 2023 everything changed,” he says. “Officials no longer treat you with the same kindnessthey fall into migratory negligence, they send you from one place to another, to ask for an appointment, to go to the other, to take out the registry and in the end the truth is that, after spending 2 million pesos (about US$500), I’m still irregular.”
“One is a warrior and I am going to exhaust all resources, but I am disappointed in the Colombian State, the truth is that I am not going to be here illegally.”
BBC
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