Page 12 - ARUBA TODAY

A12 WORLD NEWS
Tuesday 15 May 2018
As Venezuela exodus swells, more migrants face removal

By CHRISTINE ARMARIO and 20th presidential election.
MANUEL RUEDA Meanwhile, hyperinflation
Associated Press has devastated the value
CUCUTA, Colombia (AP) — of Venezuela's monthly
When Colombian police minimum wage, which now
caught Victor Colmena- is barely enough to pur-
res selling coffee without chase one carton of eggs.
a work permit on the dusty "This is a refugee crisis," said
streets of Cucuta, they or- Francine Howard, a Ven-
dered him to get inside a ezuelan activist in Colom-
truck filled with Venezuelan bia. "They are fleeing Ven-
migrants being quietly re- ezuela like people fleeing a
moved from the country. war."
The 20-year-old construc- Colombian officials have
tion worker trembled as been careful to avoid us-
the unmarked truck ap- ing the word "refugee," a
proached Colombia's designation that would
border, thinking about his also imply devoting greater
pregnant wife still in Cucuta resources to migrants at a
and the dangers he might time when the country is
face back in the country also trying to push forward
he'd fled. a historic peace process.
"I was incredibly afraid to Still, rights groups and exile
go back to Venezuela," In this Feb. 22, 2018 file photo, Venezuelan citizens hold up their identification cards for inspection organizations have praised
Colmenares said. "People by the Colombian immigration police, in Cucuta, Colombia, on the border with Venezuela. Colombia for treating tens
are robbed there. Peo- Associated Press of thousands of sick mi-
ple are killed. I cannot go grants in hospitals, creating
back." history. Colombia has re- park," he said. gal would hinge on wheth- a path toward legalization
As the exodus of Venezu- ceived the bulk of the mi- In several inspections wit- er any Venezuelans being for some migrants and pro-
elans fleeing their country's grants, with an estimated nessed recently by the AP, returned are refugees fear- viding others with food and
economic and humanitari- 3,000 Venezuelans arriving however, migrants them- ing persecution. shelter.
an crisis grows, neighboring in the neighboring Andean selves did not ask to be "There usually should be Other nations are also
Colombia is responding by nation each day. At that returned. Instead, officials some avenue for people sending back Venezuelan
tightening checks aimed pace, Colombia receives told them simply to, "Get in who fear prosecution to migrants as their numbers
at curbing the number of within two months about the truck," as several police apply for relief and be able continue to swell, though
migrants in the country il- as many migrants as Italy officers kept guard nearby. to resist pressures to depart not necessarily by 'volun-
legally. In border cities like did in all of 2016 during the Once back in Venezuela, voluntarily," he said. tary return.' Trinidad and
Cucuta, police are round- more high-profile Mediter- most of the migrants easily The United Nations' Refu- Tobago recently deported
ing up Venezuelans illegally ranean migration crisis. find a way to return to Co- gee Agency recently is- 82 Venezuelans, more than
hawking popsicles in public Officially, Colombia de- lombia through the nation's sued guidance to regional a third of whom had ap-
squares or working as pros- ports few migrants: Just 442 porous 1,370-mile (2,200-ki- governments explaining plied for asylum. The U.N.
titutes in brothels and tak- have been removed from lometer) border. One mi- that many of the migrants condemned the move as
ing them back to Venezu- the country so far in 2018, grant caught in a recent likely qualify for internation- a breach of international
ela. according to government sting said she had been re- al protection, and telling refugee law. In northern
But the removals, although figures. But those numbers turned to Venezuela eight officials that Venezuelans Brazil, a governor has also
often legal, raise a prickly do not include migrants like times. should not be deported or asked the country's top
question: Should migrants Colmenares, who officials "The process of returning forcibly returned. court to allow her to close
be sent back to a country count as having "voluntarily Venezuelans is absolutely Though many are not flee- her state's border with Ven-
the U.S. and others have returned" to their country of useless," said Ronal Rodri- ing targeted political per- ezuela.
condemned as a hunger- origin. In total, about 2,700 guez, a professor studying secution, the U.N. noted On a recent afternoon in
stricken "dictatorship?" Venezuelans have been migrants at Rosario Univer- that the circumstances Colombia, a group of 17
"We can't tell everyone, sent back under that clas- sity in Colombia's capital. leading Venezuelans to mi- officers in green uniforms
'Come, stay here,'" Chris- sification, according to of- Colombia's new removal grate fall within the spirit of gathered under a scorch-
tian Kruger, the director ficials. tactic is not without prece- the 1984 Cartagena Dec- ing sun as they patrolled
of Colombia's migration A new special migration dent. Each year thousands laration signed by several the streets of Cucuta. They
agency, said in a recent in- unit launched by President in the U.S. who are arrested Latin American nations. The stopped one young man
terview. "There is no country Juan Manuel Santos in Feb- and face the prospect of non-binding agreement caught washing wind-
in the world that can sup- ruary conducts twice-daily deportation instead opt embraces a broader defini- shields at a busy intersec-
port unlimited migration." round ups in the nation's to return in what is known tion of refugees to include tion. Another man was
About 1 million Venezu- busiest border cities. Ac- there as a "voluntary de- people fleeing violence, boarded onto the truck
elans fled from 2015 to cording to Kruger, Venezu- parture," noted Kevin John- hunger and poverty result- after being spotted sell-
2017, according to the elans caught without pa- son, dean of the law school ing from the breakdown in ing popsicles for about 10
U.N.'s International Orga- pers are given the option at the University of Califor- the rule of law. cents each.
nization for Migration, and of paying a fine far higher nia, Davis. The U.N. has not comment- "I left the country to sur-
hundreds of thousands than what most will earn "In a lot of countries you see ed specifically on Colom- vive," said Jorge Mireles, a
more have left in the first in a year or contesting it in programs and policies like bia's removals. father of three, explaining
three months of this year. court. what is apparently going The removals come as Ven- that in Venezuela he had
They are now displaced Facing those prospects, he on in Colombia because ezuelan President Nicolas no means of feeding his
throughout the region in said most instead ask to be there is a fear of mass mi- Maduro moves to tighten children.
an accelerating migratory taken back. gration," he said. his hold on power, barring "I don't know if they'll try
wave that is unparalleled "They would rather be in Johnson added that his biggest challengers and take me back to Ven-
in South America's modern their homes than living in a whether the practice is le- from the upcoming May ezuela," he said.q