Human rights group calls on governments to protect Venezuelan and Haitian immigrants

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A global human rights watchdog on Wednesday called on Latin American governments to improve protection schemes, grant legal status and reverse “onerous visa requirements” for millions of Haitians and Venezuelans who have struggled to find work, access to health care and education in South American host countries, forcing them to increasingly seek asylum in the United States.

Human Rights Watch, in a report describing the situation of Haitian and Venezuelan migrants, said that “limited” integration and regularization policies in South America are forcing vulnerable people to head to the United States every month. To reach the U.S. border, many asylum seekers make a long, dangerous journey that includes crossing the Darien Gap, a roadless swath of jungle between Colombia and Panama.

“What we have documented through the course of our research over the last couple of years is how the lack of safe and legal pathways has pushed migrants and asylum seekers to cross the dangerous Darien Gap,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director of HRW, during a presentation of the report in Bogota.

The group urged governments in Latin America to implement a “region-wide protection regime that would grant all Venezuelans and Haitians legal status for a fixed but renewable term of adequate duration,” even if they may not qualify for refugee status under domestic law.

The report also calls for governments to eliminate barriers that hinder the integration of migrants and refugees, including legislation that prevents people from getting work permits, while they seek asylum in other countries.

“While some Latin American governments have made commendable efforts to receive migrants and asylum seekers, efforts to regularize migration in the region have often fallen short due to restrictive timelines, complex procedures, onerous document requirements, and administrative delays,” said the report, which reviewed asylum policies in countries including Panama, Colombia, Brazil, Peru and Chile. “Asylum systems also struggle with limited capacity, resulting in significant delays,” the group said.

According to Panama officials, more than 700,000 migrants have crossed the Darien Gap over the past 18 months on their way to the United States. So far this year, some 238,000 people have crossed.

Around 65% of those crossing the swampy and treacherous jungle are Venezuelans escaping their nation’s political and economic crisis.

Hassan said that on a recent visit to Necoclí — a coastal town in Colombia from where migrants depart for Darien — the group identified people who left Venezuela after the disputed July 28 presidential election.

“We met families facing impossible choices. They would either have to endure the repression and fear of arrest in Venezuela or risk violence, exploitation and sexual assault and possibly even death,” she said.

So far this year, 11,000 Haitians have made the jungle crossing on their way to the U.S. border, according to figures published by Panama’s national immigration agency. While a new interim government was established in Haiti earlier this year, gangs continue to control 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince and millions face “acute food insecurity,” according to the U.N. food agency.

Human Rights Watch said Haitians living in South America struggle to get residence permits or access to formal jobs, making it increasingly difficult to support their families back home and prompting them to head for the United States instead.

Venezuelans also appear to be struggling to integrate into South American countries, whose economies have slowed down after the pandemic.

Research conducted by the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, suggests that most Venezuelans seeking asylum in the United States have already tried to settle down in countries like Peru, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador. According to a July report by the refugee agency, 66% of Venezuelans who had crossed the Darien Jungle that month, said they had lived in South American countries.

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Astrid Suárez in Bogotá, Colombia, contributed.

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