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 protections, grant legal status and roll back “burdensome visa requirements” for millions of Haitians and Venezuelans who struggle to find jobs, access health care and education in South American host countries, increasingly forcing them to seek asylum in the United States.

Human Rights Watch said in a report on the situation of Haitian and Venezuelan migrants that “limited” integration and regularization policies in South America are forcing vulnerable people to travel to the United States every month. To reach the U.S. border, many asylum seekers face long, perilous journeys, crossing the Darien Gap, a roadless stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama.

“What we have documented in our research over the past few years is how the lack of safe and legal routes has driven migrants and asylum seekers to cross the perilous Darien Gap,” said Tirana Hassan, HRW’s executive director, 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 sufficient duration,” even if they may not qualify for refugee status under domestic law.

The report also calls on governments to remove barriers to the integration of migrants and refugees, such as legislation that prevents people from obtaining work permits while seeking asylum in other countries.

“While some Latin American governments have made commendable efforts to accommodate migrants and asylum seekers, efforts to regularize migration in the region have often fallen short due to restrictive timelines, complex procedures, burdensome documentation requirements and administrative delays,” said the report, which examined 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.

More than 700,000 migrants have crossed the Darien Gap en route to the United States in the past 18 months, according to Panama officials. About 238,000 people have crossed so far this year.

About 65% of the people crossing the swampy and dangerous jungle are Venezuelans fleeing the political and economic crisis in their country.

Hassan said that during a recent visit to Necocli, a coastal town in Colombia from which migrants depart for Darien, the group identified people who left Venezuela after the disputed July 28 presidential election.

“We met families who faced impossible choices. They either had to endure repression and fear of arrest in Venezuela, or they risked violence, exploitation and sexual abuse, and possibly even death,” she said.

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

According to Human Rights Watch, Haitians living in South America are struggling to obtain residency or formal employment, making it increasingly difficult to support their families at home, and are therefore choosing to move to the United States.

Venezuelans also appear to be struggling to integrate into South American countries, where economies have slowed since the pandemic.

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

___

Astrid Suárez from Bogotá, Colombia, contributed.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.