Explainer: Venezuelan Migration Policy in the Americas

Venezuela’s largest Spanish-speaking neighbor, Colombia, is the country hosting the highest number of migrants, 2.8 million or around a third of all those displaced across international borders. By the end of July 2024, almost 70 percent of Venezuelans had regular migration status, with an additional 12 percent in the process of regularization. 

Most of these migrants have achieved this through Colombia’s Temporary Protection Statute for Venezuelan Migrants (ETPV in Spanish), a legal mechanism introduced in March 2021 by former President Iván Duque’s administration that guarantees registered Venezuelan migrants legal status until May 2031. Although the scheme targets Venezuelans who arrive and initially stay in Colombia on short-term visas or permits, undocumented migrants who had entered the country before February 2021 were also allowed to sign up. 

Through this program, more than 1.9 million Venezuelans, including children, have acquired a​ Temporary Protection Permit (PPT), a document that enables access to formal employment, healthcare, education, and financial services. 

In October 2024, Colombia also launched the PEP-Tutor, a Special Stay Permit for the guardians of Venezuelan children with regular status in Colombia. Colombia’s migration agency estimates that this permit could regularize the currently undocumented guardians of more than 270,000 Venezuelan children in the country. It grants the same benefits as the PPT. 

After five years of legal stay in Colombia, Venezuelans with these permits can—and are encouraged to—apply for a regular residence visa.

Although Colombia is the country hosting the greatest number of displaced Venezuelans, Peru’s capital, Lima, is the city with the most Venezuelan residents outside of Venezuela—approximately one million. At least an additional half million migrants live elsewhere in the country. A 2022 survey of the Venezuelan population in Peru found that more than one-third did not have legal status, but most others had settled into a temporary or resident migration category.

In 2019, Peru introduced a humanitarian visa specifically for Venezuelans. This allows persons who do not meet the conditions to be granted asylum—but are still considered to be in a vulnerable or high-risk situation—to live and work in the country for renewable six-month periods.

Venezuelans can no longer apply for these visas at Peru’s consulate in Caracas due to the suspension of diplomatic relations between the two countries in the aftermath of the disputed results of Venezuela’s July 28 election. However, if they are able to travel internationally, they can apply at Peru’s consular offices in nearby countries. For Venezuelans in Peru, only those who have filed for asylum are eligible to receive this protection, with the offer being at the discretion of the Peruvian foreign ministry.

In October 2020, the government introduced a new system to regularize the status of undocumented migrants. Those who had overstayed their visa or had entered the country irregularly could apply for a Temporary Stay Permit Card, known as CPP in its Spanish acronym. The CPP allows migrants to remain in Peru legally for a non-renewable period of one year. The last round of CPP applications occurred from May 2023 to November 2023.

In order not to lose their legal status, Venezuelans with a CPP and other short-term permits have been encouraged to apply for a Foreigner ID card (Carnet de Extranjería), which allows migrants to live and work in Peru for renewable one-year periods, and facilitates other benefits, such as access to social security and banking services.

On June 27, the day prior to Venezuela’s contested election, the Peruvian government updated entry requirements for Venezuelans. The new rules stipulate that starting July 2 those wishing to enter Peru legally must have a passport valid for at least six months post-entry, as well as a visa granted by Peru’s consular office in Venezuela.

Peru had suspended these requirements in 2019, allowing Venezuelans to enter with expired passports or simply ID cards if they were joining close family members or considered to be in a vulnerable situation. In the five-day period between the publication and application of the new rules, the government allowed Venezuelans who entered with expired passports before July 2 to regularize their status.

The United States’ Department of Homeland Security has drawn on previously existing frameworks for exceptional migration flows to address the increased numbers of Venezuelans arriving in the country.  

The first such initiative was the March 2021 decision to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Venezuelan nationals who had arrived in the country before March 8, 2021. The U.S. government offers TPS to migrants from countries it considers to be dangerous to return to, usually due to conflict, an environmental disaster, or “other extraordinary and temporary conditions.” In September 2023, the DHS announced a second registration period for those who had arrived by the end of July 2023. They have until April 2, 2025 to register, which is also the date that this designation is set to expire.  

Over 700,000 Venezuelan migrants either have or are eligible for TPS in the United States. Those with TPS designation from the first registration period are protected until September 2025 from deportation and can seek work permits​,​ as well as travel authorization documents. Venezuelans with this status can still apply for other forms of immigration status, including asylum. 

In October 2022, in an effort to discourage migrants from traversing the Southern border, the United States established a humanitarian parole system for Venezuelans, similar to programs for Afghan and Ukrainian migrants. The process requires prospective migrants to apply online from outside of the United States and identify a U.S.-based sponsor who must undergo background checks on their criminal and financial records. Persons with resident or refugee status in another country or who have attempted to cross irregularly into the United States, Mexico, or Panama after October 19, 2022, the date the program was announced, are not eligible for parole.

More than 117,000 Venezuelans have benefited from the program. Once in the United States, paroled Venezuelans can obtain a work permit and stay in the country for up to two years.

However, it was reported in early October that the United States will not renew this status for paroled Venezuelans already in the country, meaning that those who do not apply and qualify for an alternative immigration status—such as TPS or asylum—will soon begin losing legal protection. Given that Venezuela does not accept deportees from the United States, it is unclear what will happen to those who do not transition to another status.

The United States receives the highest volume of asylum requests from Venezuelans, though the decision-making process usually lasts four to six years. Asylum-seekers must wait at least 150 days, around five months, before they can apply for a work authorization, then another month before they are eligible to receive it.

More than 550,00 Venezuelans have crossed their country’s southern border into Brazil. Successive Brazilian governments since Michele Temer (2016-2018) have loosened Venezuelans’ documentary requirements for entry and residence visas while providing logistical and humanitarian services for those crossing into the country by land. Over 80 percent of Venezuelan migrants in Brazil have residence permits. 

In 2021, Brazil reinstated a temporary residence permit for Venezuelans, along with nationals of other neighboring countries not a part of Mercosur’s residence agreement (i.e. Guyana and Suriname), that was first introduced in 2017. Once approved by the Federal Police, Venezuelans receive a migrant ID card and are allowed to live in Brazil for two years with access to formal employment, social services, and education, as well as freedom of movement. Before the permit expires, Venezuelans can apply either to renew it or for permanent residence, if they meet qualifications. Venezuelans are allowed to submit expired identification documents and passports, and persons who overstayed their initial 90-day visa-free period or entered irregularly are still encouraged to apply.

In the border state of Roraima, a major point of entry, Brazil has channeled Venezuelan arrivals through its “Operation Welcome.” The government has collaborated with the UN Migration Agency and other NGOs since 2018 to establish reception centers for migrants traveling from Venezuela. These centers offer healthcare and emergency shelter for migrants and asylum-seekers, as well as legal aid to regularize their status in Brazil and access social services. Migrants are then transported—with their permission—to other regions of the country based on labor needs.

Venezuelans outside of Brazil can apply for a humanitarian visa. The humanitarian visa framework is directed at persons who don’t meet the requirements for asylum, but are still considered to be in a vulnerable situation in their home country. Originally designed in 2012 to facilitate Haitians escaping the ruins of the 2010 earthquake, the temporary visa for “humanitarian accommodation” was codified into Brazil’s general migration legislation in 2017, meaning that Venezuelans could now apply.

In addition to the measures described here, earlier waves of Venezuelan migrants benefitted from freedoms to work and live across South American countries that are members of the regional blocs Mercosur and Unasur. However, Venezuela was suspended from Mercosur in 2017 after the election of the regime-controlled constituent assembly and Unasur became defunct shortly after. 

Unlike his predecessor, the late Sebastián Piñera, the administration of Chile’s Gabriel Boric has refrained from implementing any mass regularization initiatives. In 2018 and 2021, the Piñera government conducted regularization campaigns for irregular migrants, but also introduced a law preventing Venezuelans from applying for residence while in Chile on a tourist or visitor visa. The current Boric government has opted to stick to a case-by-case process for granting temporary residence permits to undocumented Venezuelans.

From June to November 2023, migration authorities carried out a process whereby migrants with irregular status submitted their biometric data and other documents for identification purposes, but with no guarantee of residence. The general procedure dictates that Venezuelan citizens must be outside of Chile to apply for temporary residence. Categories of two-year residence permits include family reunification, employment, and humanitarian purposes.

Following the closure of Venezuela’s embassy in Santiago due to Boric’s rejection of the declared results of the July 28 election, Chile has allowed Venezuelans already in the country to submit expired passports and other non-authenticated identification documents in their application for residence visas. 

An estimated 530,000 Venezuelans are in Chile.

In August 2024, Ecuador, which hosts around 445,000 Venezuelan migrants, announced its third mass regularization process for Venezuelan citizens in five years through a Temporary Residence of Exception visa. Undocumented Venezuelans have eight months to apply for the two-year visa, renewable once for an additional two-year period. It is expected to benefit up to 100,000 undocumented Venezuelan migrants in the country, and allows persons whose passport or identification documents expired up to five years previously to apply.