Analysis: With mass exodus from Haiti and Venezuela, unprecedented migration crisis affects all Latin America

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On a recent Saturday morning, Cristina Oyarzo, a 41-year-old historian who lives in the coastal city of Iquique, Chile, near the border with Bolivia, was very tense. Like many other residents, she saw on social media that there would be an anti-immigrant demonstration a few hours later and was worried that things would get out of hand. She was right.

In recent months, Iquique has become a stop for many Latin American migrants to escape poverty and political turmoil in their countries. Tensions between the migrant crowd and the local population have steadily increased.

On the fateful Saturday, September 25, they reached a boiling point: thousands participated in anti-migrant protests that culminated in violence when some attacked a large group of Venezuelan migrants.

Oyarzo, who left her home to register the protest, said she arrived at the city sidewalk and saw a group of protesters grabbing seven young Venezuelan men, one of them missing a leg, and trying to attack them physically. Other people intervened, but the attackers managed to steal the migrants’ backpacks, shouting that they were “criminals” and “thieves.”

“It was horrible!” recounted Oyarzo. “The migrants were desperate because they were trapped between their attackers and the sea. They had no way out.”

In other parts of the city, protesters held Chilean flags with messages saying “Dirty Venezuelans get out of our country” or “Human rights are for Chileans” and chanted the national anthem. They also shouted at the migrants, many families with small children, to return to their country. Some even spat at them and set fire to clothes, carts, toys, and mattresses.

The violence in Iquique, a city of about 200,000 people, reflects a growing tension over migration in Latin America. The historic exodus from Venezuela, many Haitians moving across the continent, and other regional migrants who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic have contributed to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the region.

CHANGING PATTERNS

“We have always had migrants in Latin America and the Caribbean,” said Cristián Doña-Reveco, director of the Latino and Latin American Studies Office at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

“What is changing are the patterns, the response of governments to the different flows, and the effect they have on migrants’ lives,” he added.

By the mid-2020s, international migrants made up 2.6 percent of South America’s total population, a significant increase of almost 1 percent from that recorded in 2015, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Almost 80 percent of them came from elsewhere in South America, and many are now in transit due to increasingly difficult positions on immigration in various countries. Another reason is the pandemic, which has exacerbated the already difficult living conditions and made jobs rare.

Between 2000 and 2017, several South American leaders, including presidents of Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and Bolivia, pushed for more progressive immigration laws to make it easier for migrants to cross borders, work legally, and obtain residency visas. But political trends have since changed, and restrictions on movement are gaining strength.

In Argentina, for example, the leading destination for migrants in South America, then-President Mauricio Macri passed a decree in 2017 to limit migrant entry and make deportation easier, which caused harsh criticism from the United Nations (UN). In Chile, President Sebastián Piñera also toughened immigration policies.

Political turmoil has also increased the pressure. Large protests in Chile and Colombia; a presidential ouster in Bolivia; a political crisis that saw three different men take over the presidency of Peru in one week; and the strengthening of Venezuela’s authoritarian regime, have led millions of Latin Americans to leave in search of a better life.

“While traditionally there were Latin American countries that were the final destination for many migrants, currently every nation in the region has both migrants who arrive to settle and those who are passing through,” detailed the Doña-Reveco expert.

VENEZUELAN EXODUS

Venezuelans are at the center of the current humanitarian crisis in the region. Since Nicolás Maduro took power almost a decade ago, political turmoil and a slowing economy have led the country to collapse. Hyperinflation, power cuts, shortages of food, water, and essential medicines, as well as political persecution have caused more than five million Venezuelans to leave Venezuela, according to the IOM. Of these, 79% have moved to other South American nations.

Venezuelan migration began with highly skilled professionals who had the means to travel and settle in other countries without too many problems but increasingly included poor working-class people. Experts say that the volume of this flow is comparable to the Syrian refugee crisis.

Marcela Tapia, a researcher at the Institute of International Studies at Arturo Prat University in Iquique, said that every day on her way to work, she sees hundreds of Venezuelans camping on the beach or in the streets.

“What has changed here more recently is the impact of the pandemic and the closing of borders to stop Covid-19,” she said. “Those who have come in recent months are entering illegally, and we estimate that only a third of them traveled directly from Venezuela. The rest came from Colombia, Ecuador, or Peru because they lost their jobs there.”

Tapia said she recently took a woman and her four children, including a baby, to a shelter. The woman told the researcher that she had hitchhiked from Venezuela to Chile after her husband left her, hoping to find relatives in Santiago.

“They spent days without food, depending on charity to survive,” Tapia said.

Chile is one of the wealthiest countries in the region and a natural magnet for migrants looking for work. But the journey through the town of Colchane, a standard migration point on the border with Bolivia, is treacherous and involves walking long hours across a plateau at an altitude of more than 3,600 meters.

According to recent statements by the mayor of Colchane to a local radio station, 15 people have died this year trying to reach Chile, a higher number than ever before in the country.

HAITIANS ARE THE OTHER WAVE

Meanwhile, many Haitian migrants, once the fastest-growing group in Chile, have chosen to leave the country after years of dealing with open racism and new government policies that make it increasingly difficult for them to meet visa requirements and work legally. In September, thousands of Haitians previously settled in Brazil and Chile arrived in Texas, U.S., and spent days in makeshift shelters in Del Rio, attracting global attention.

“There is already tension in the region over both Venezuelan and Central American migration flows, and I think Haitians pose a particular challenge for some of these countries because they have been ignored for so long,” said Caitlyn Yates, an anthropology postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia who has worked on mobility experiences of transnational migrants moving within and beyond Latin America. “We will see some very tense situations in the coming weeks or months,” she added.

“I wanted to go back to Bolivia”

Covid-19 restrictions have also exacerbated unauthorized border crossings and clashes at border points, according to Jorge Martínez, a researcher at the Latin American and Caribbean Demography Center.

In Iquique, the migrant population has increased partly because many migrants do not have the Covid-19 vaccine needed to continue their journey by bus or cannot afford to continue their journey. This is also happening in other countries, where border closures have trapped some migrants in a kind of limbo.

“There are people who were migrating when the pandemic started,” Doña-Reveco recounted.

“They wanted to go to Chile, for example, where relatives were going to give them work. But when they got to Peru, the borders were closed, and they couldn’t go to Chile. The whole plan came crashing down. They have no money, no contacts, and are stuck in makeshift camps.

In several countries, authorities have often been unable or unwilling to respond adequately to the basic needs of vulnerable migrants in such situations. Only after last month’s violence in Iquique, the Chilean government announced a series of emergency assistance measures for migrants in the country’s north. In addition to tighter border control, there will be new shelters or accommodation vouchers to keep migrants off the streets, a medical care center, and a reception center to help those planning to travel to other parts of the country, where they have relatives reach their destination.

“Governments have a responsibility to protect these people from avoiding precariousness and negative reactions from local populations,” Martinez said. “There are international agreements signed, and Latin American countries must coordinate action plans to face this emergency.”

A 26-year-old woman who does not want her name published because she fears being deported told CNN that she left Bolivia with her sister in late July. Neither of them could find work in their home country, and the few jobs they tried — house cleaning, supermarket checkout, and a pharmaceutical company’s production line — paid less than the local minimum wage. Both have children to feed.

The two Bolivian sisters paid smugglers to take them to Chile first by minibus, then on foot, through the altitude and cold of the Bolivian mountains. “It was terrifying because I didn’t know what could happen to us,” the woman reported. “We didn’t know if they were going to rob us. The cold was terrible, my head hurt, and I felt like my ears were going to explode because of the height. I almost fainted.”

During her journey, she saw whole families with children making the crossing. Once in Chile, she was shocked by the number of migrants living on the streets. “I was very sad, I felt like crying. You see many things you can’t imagine, like parents stealing to feed their children. At first, I wanted to go back to Bolivia, but I couldn’t imagine having to make the crossing again.”

Source: CNN in Spanish