Update Country Report Curaçao 21 Jun 2017

The exact number is unclear, but it is beyond dispute that large and rising numbers of Venezuelans are fleeing a humanitarian, political and economic crisis in their country, with most arriving in Brazil, Colombia and several neighbouring Caribbean islands. Many are unskilled workers who arrive with nothing and often need healthcare. This is placing a growing burden on social services provision in the receiving countries, particularly in border towns, where the majority of people are arriving. But any hopes that this might spur the region to take a firmer and more unified line towards the Venezuelan regime are likely to be dashed; the Latin American policy response is expected to remain reactive rather than proactive, and implemented on a country-by-country basis.

Net outward flows of migration from Venezuela are nothing new. During the term of the previous president, Hugo Chávez (1999-2013), thousands of people emigrated, with university studies indicating that the number of Venezuelans living overseas rose from 50,000 in the mid-1990s to 1.2m by the end of 2013. Many of these people had family overseas, including in the US, Colombia, Mexico and Panama, and the majority of these migrants were highly educated (including oil engineers and health professionals).

There are no official studies on the numbers of Venezuelans who have left the country since then, but several estimates suggest that outward migration has escalated rapidly, with potentially as many as 2m Venezuelans now living overseas (over 6% of the population). The US immigration service has stated that the number of asylum applications has risen sevenfold in the past three years, and in Venezuela there are reports of a huge upsurge in passport applications in 2016 (no official figures exist, but estimates-based on sources at the official passport office-suggest that 2m-3m Venezuelans applied for a passport last year, with opinion polls indicating that many of these individuals are planning to flee the country). Only 300,000 documents were actually issued, reflecting both bureaucratic problems and a lack of printing materials needed to manufacture the passports. With the government pledging to fast-track many of the backlogged applications, the outward flow of Venezuelans is likely to continue to accelerate.

Exodus of low-skilled workers

There are signs that even Venezuelans without official documentation are leaving Venezuela, with the deepening recession, triple-digit inflation, and chronic shortages of food and medicines prompting large numbers to pay middlemen to get them out of the country. Outward migration under Chávez primarily consisted of middle-class professionals who left with the financial means to support themselves, but now migration is increasingly being driven by low-skilled and poorly educated workers, who, instead of travelling to the US, are primarily fleeing to nearby Caribbean countries (including Aruba, Curaçao, and Trinidad and Tobago), as well as Brazil and Colombia.

Some of the Caribbean islands have tried to control arrivals with stricter customs regulations, with Curaçao requiring Venezuelan tourists to show US$1,000 in cash before being allowed into the country, but this has just meant that refugees are increasingly arriving in makeshift rafts, having undertaken a perilous 60-km journey across rough seas. However, the fact that the Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard only intercepts 5-10% of Venezuelan arrivals means that the number of illegal immigrants is likely to continue to rise sharply. Given that many of the Caribbean countries lack the financial and physical capacity to deal with large numbers of Venezuelan arrivals (the populations of Aruba and Curaçao, for instance, are only 105,000 and 160,000 respectively, and unemployment levels are already high), the worsening crisis in Venezuela will consequently place a growing strain on domestic services in these countries. Some officials on these islands have linked rising domestic crime to the rising number of Venezuelan immigrants.

Border towns in Colombia and Brazil bear the brunt of arrivals

In theory, Brazil and Colombia, as much bigger countries, are capable of dealing with larger numbers of migrants. But the problem is that many refugees are fleeing across land borders, placing significant pressure on select areas and towns.

In Brazil, many Venezuelans have crossed into Roraima state, where the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that shelters are housing 6,000 Venezuelans, with an additional 5,000 on a waiting list. Many refugees seek access to local healthcare, having left Venezuela because of a chronic lack of basic medicine, and arrive with underlying health conditions that have gone untreated, which has meant a higher rate of hospitalisation. The General Hospital of Roraima has stated that the number of Venezuelans treated during 2016 rose threefold, and that around 80% of the patients at the hospital in Pacaraima, close to the border, are Venezuelan.

Brazil's Ministry of Defence has indicated that it is drawing up a plan to cope with a potential mass influx of refugees, should the situation in Venezuela continue to deteriorate. The fact that Brazilian law allows people who have filed a request for asylum to remain in the country is attractive to migrating Venezuelans. However, the authorities dealing with asylum requests are overrun and appointments to file asylum petitions are now being made for late 2018. The Brazilian authorities have passed measures allowing Venezuelans access to an automatic two-year residency permit, in an attempt to take the pressure off the asylum process. This may encourage more Venezuelans to migrate to Brazil.

Colombia is also feeling the strain. The national immigration service has said that 140,000 Venezuelans currently live in Colombia (although estimates from Venezuelan universities are much higher, at around 900,000), but, with the number of Venezuelans crossing the border into Colombia massively outstripping the amount returning to their country, the Venezuelan population in Colombia is rising sharply. The border town of Cucutá has borne the brunt of arrivals, and housing and health services are becoming increasingly strained (the local hospital, for example, has racked up debts of US$1.3m since 2015 to fund the cost of treating Venezuelans, as Colombian insurance firms do not cover treatment of foreign nationals). The town's mayor has said that he is putting together contingency plans to cope if an extra 100,000 refugees arrive.

A regional response is unlikely to emerge

There has been speculation that the growing societal pressures being felt by these recipient countries might prompt governments to take a firmer diplomatic stance towards the embattled Venezuelan government. Oil prices remain relatively low, which should, in theory, strengthen this argument, as it diminishes the value of PetroCaribe (an oil-financing deal granted by Venezuela to many neighbouring countries). When oil prices were high, the subsidies implicit in the PetroCaribe scheme were more valuable to beneficiary countries, mainly in the Caribbean, and the Venezuelan administration tended to use the threat of terminating the arrangement as a way to ensure loyalty. At current prices, and with the quantities of oil provided by Venezuela falling sharply, such countries feel less diplomatically constrained by the fear of losing access to PetroCaribe.

So far there is little indication that a unified regional approach will emerge in response to the humanitarian, political and economic crisis in Venezuela. The head of the Organisation of American States (OAS), Luís Almagro, has repeatedly called for tougher measures, but a proposed declaration that heavily criticised the Venezuelan government and called for an immediate release of political prisoners, as well as the shelving of a planned constitutional reform, failed to get the necessary two thirds support from within the OAS. As a result, regional policy towards Venezuela is likely to remain reactive rather than proactive, with responses set to be drawn up on a country-by-country basis. The fact that those countries most affected by the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela are already engaged in emergency planning for an anticipated escalation in Venezuelan arrivals indicates an underlying belief that developments in Venezuela are likely to get worse before they get better.