A few years ago, Oriana held a steady job at a hospital in Venezuela, her home country. Though not wealthy, she was able to own a house and feed her two children.
However, recent economic upheaval has forced Oriana, along with millions of other Venezuelans, to jump ship, leaving their uncertain livelihoods under President Nicolás Maduro behind to seek a more stable future abroad.
How did we get here?
The Venezuelan economic crisis was brewing long before the current president came to power. Maduro’s predecessor, the popular socialist Hugo Chavez, enacted dramatic social reforms, such as massive welfare programs and price controls to aid wealth redistribution efforts. While these policies were initially successful in cutting Venezuela’s poverty rate in half, they came at a heavy price. By Chavez’s death in 2013, the country’s economic growth had collapsed under the weight of overspending, inflation, and fiscal mismanagement. Once again, half of Venezuelans lived in poverty, but this time there were no social reforms to save them—though that did not stop President Maduro from trying.
Since his ascension to the presidency in 2013, Maduro has religiously followed in Chavez’s footsteps. Blaming capitalism for his country’s economic woes, he has continued to throw gasoline onto the fire by increasing government spending on ineffective programs. Meanwhile, the production of oil, which makes up 95 percent of Venezuela’s exports, is hitting record lows. In other words, Maduro traded long-term economic stability for short-term public perception, a gambit that has cast his country into the throes of hyperinflation, poverty, and food shortages.
What’s happening now?
Shortly after the International Monetary Fund predicted that Venezuela’s inflation would hit 1,000,000 percent by the end of this year, Maduro launched a desperate attempt to save the economy. Reforms include a 3,000 percent minimum wage hike (from 50 cents monthly to nearly $30), corporate tax hikes, and a whole new currency. The first two reforms have crushed Venezuelan businesses with uncertainty, causing shutdowns across the country and sending thousands into unemployment. The latter doesn’t instill much confidence either, as the new currency is based on the Petro, a potentially volatile cryptocurrency which in turn is based on the price of a barrel of oil.
While more than a 1.5 Venezuelans have already left their country since 2015, that number is growing at an alarming rate, exacerbated by Maduro’s recent reforms. Most of these migrants cannot afford a plane ticket or other travel expenses, so are forced to travel on foot or by bus to surrounding countries. Chief among these countries is Columbia, which shares a border with Venezuela and hosts nearly 1 million Venezuelan migrants—more than any other nation.
It is here, in the northern city of Riohacha, where Oriana and her children struggle to survive.
To get there she had to travel the dangerous road where every step was controlled by armed highwaymen, who forced migrants to pay their toll or they would steal their belongings, she says. Even after she arrived, there was little support. Oriana takes care of 10 other children beyond her own, collecting recyclables to sell to a local plant for an income of less than $5 a day. Taking shelter under a bridge, the family struggles day-to-day for even the essentials, unable to secure real jobs due to their immigrant status.
“What I need most is a roof for us all and a good job,” Oriana says. “We don’t have shelter. We don’t have anywhere to go.
Mercy Corps has invested in helping migrants like Oriana to find a stable footing, supplying medical supplies and money. While the organization has worked there since 2005, it has recently redoubled its efforts due to the escalating crisis. Its primary goals are based on an assessment of the needs of migrants earlier this year, where the aid organization found that people needed a job, medicine, and legal status in Columbia above all else. Thus, Mercy Corps has focused on paying for Venezuelans’ prescriptions at local clinics, and providing funding to look for work.
How are surrounding states reacting?
Indeed, with Columbia facing instability and poverty of its own, many migrants choose to continue on to Peru or Ecuador, or take another route entirely into Brazil. These routes too are filled with danger. Peru and Ecuador have recently enacted legislation that demands incoming migrants present their passport to border officials, rather than just showing an identification card. Such a requirement is unrealistic for the majority of Venezuelans, who simply don’t have access to this documentation.
What awaits migrants in Brazil is perhaps even worse. There, rising anti-immigration sentiments have created a highly unwelcoming environment for Venezuelans escaping their turbulent home. Recently, angry residents of a Brazilian border town clashed violently with immigrants, hurling rocks and setting fire to the migrants’ few possessions. Nearly 1,200 people were driven back across the border.
Such disorder is common near usual crossing points, where nearly 800 Venezuelans enter Brazil everyday—a number which has only grown since Maduro’s reforms. The crime rate has spiked in these border provinces, with homicide rates reaching record highs. To combat the increasing chaos, Brazilian President Michel Temer has deployed armed forces to the northern state of Roraima. While officials claim they are there to protect migrants, it is unclear if their presence does much to stem rising Brazilian xenophobia.
What comes next?
Expect a continued backlash from conservative political organizations as they stoke fears of immigration. This is especially important in countries like Brazil—a nation that is in the midst of a high-stakes election. Jair Bolsonaro, who is often called “the Trump of Brazil,” is one of the presidential candidates and will almost certainly use the influx of migrants and rising crime rates to draw supporters.
Additionally, while Ecuador and Peru are likely to continue giving healthcare and education to migrants if able, funds are running thin. Recently, the countries, along with others in the area, called on the United Nations and other international bodies to supply more aid to the region’s governments. However, if the U.N. is unable to meet their needs, it is likely that the leaders of Peru and Ecuador will set more restrictions in place, such as the previously implemented passport requirements, to ease migrants’ burden on their countries’ welfare systems.
The mass exodus, which has been dubbed the largest migration crises in Latin American history, shows no end in sight. As long as their country remains in economic chaos, Venezuelans like Oriana have little choice but to move away to seek ways to feed their families. The solutions are two-fold. On one hand, it is critical that the immediate issue of suffering migrants be addressed, with more international relief and attention focused on the region. However, the root problem has to be addressedgrowor the crisis will simply continue. Venezuela's leaders must enact sensible reform and stabilize its currency to help the economy recover, and to help the Venezuelan people regain confidence in their nation.
