Colombian Migration Management Approach: The Venezuelan Migrants Case
A look back on the 2021 CRS-CERLAC Virtual Student Conference with Maira Delgado Laurens and Diana Tovar
Panel 7- Migration in South America: Responses to Displacement and Settlement. Moderated by Natasha Sofia Martinez. This panel took place Saturday, February 27th at 12:00 PM EST.
Recognition, Agency, and Deservingness: (Re)framing Refugee, Black, and Indigenous Movements
Colombian Migration Management Approach: The Venezuelan Migrants Case— Maira Delgado Laurens & Diana Tovar
A well developed immigration structure and a comprehensive sociocultural and political support system are critical for the successful integration of new immigrants. Colombia has received almost 1.8 million Venezuelan migrants, from which about 1.02 million have an irregular status (Pulzo, 2020). As of December 2019, only 140 out 10,479 applicants have been granted refugee status (Sarmiento, 2020). Furthermore, there has been a slow development of an immigration and refugee system, due in part to Colombia being historically an emigration country as a result of its own internal armed conflict. This legal gap in addition to a top-down xenophobic rhetoric have led to the development of an ambiguous and deficient socio-cultural and political context for Venezuelan immigrants in Colombia. Despite its own migration context, Colombia is adopting a similar immigration management approach to the U.S., adopting policies and a rhetoric that others and criminalizes immigrants.
Based on the application of the Ethics of Care Theory on the field of migration made by Nergis Canefe (2017), this study uses qualitative content analysis of current immigration policies and media coverage; and semi-structured interviews with members of organizations working with Venezuelan migrants. Moreover, this article analyses the Colombian historical, legal, and socio-cultural context of immigration and focuses on three main topics: (1) Colombian historical migration context; (2) Current immigration legal approach; (3) the interaction between the legal and sociocultural context; and (4) Venezuelan migrants and refugees agency.
Keywords: Colombia, Venezuelan Flow, Immigration management, International Refugee Protections
Maira Delgado Laurens
Maira Delgado Laurens is a sociologist from the University of California, Davis. She is pursuing a Master’s degree in Migration Studies at the University of San Francisco (USF) in the U.S. Maira has done presentations on U.S. immigration related issues for a Latino radio station in San Francisco and led the coordination of a thematic hearing request before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in collaboration with the USF Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic and 40 other organizations. Maira’s research interests include migrants’ human rights, immigrants' access to post-secondary educational institutions in the U.S., and power structures in migration processes.
Diana Tovar
Diana Tovar has a bachelor’s degree in Government and International Relations from Universidad Santo Tomás, Colombia. She is doing her second year in the Migration Studies Master’s program at the University of San Francisco (USF) in the U.S. Diana is part of the Human Rights Observatory Arrupe at USF. She was a guest speaker in the “Shaping Peace Together” event of the Rwandan Community of Northern California in October of 2020. Diana is interested in research topics on South-South migration, Venezuelan migration, International Refugee Protection, Human Rights, and the Colombian post-conflict process.
