{"id":5062927,"date":"2024-07-03T04:15:30","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T04:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/illatinonews.com\/?p=5062927"},"modified":"2024-07-03T04:15:30","modified_gmt":"2024-07-03T04:15:30","slug":"what-colombia-can-teach-chicago-about-managing-a-migrant-wave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/illn\/2024\/07\/03\/what-colombia-can-teach-chicago-about-managing-a-migrant-wave\/","title":{"rendered":"What Colombia can teach Chicago about managing a migrant wave"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The small, relatively poor South American country has received four times more Venezuelans than the United States but offers a path to integration. WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times went to see it.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
This story was supported by the\u00a0Pulitzer Center<\/a><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Para leer este art\u00edculo en espa\u00f1ol, haga clic AQU\u00cd<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Over the past two years, the city of Chicago has struggled to care for destitute migrants arriving from the southern border. The majority, around 30,000, are from Venezuela, a South American country whose economy has collapsed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the number of Venezuelans in Chicago hardly compares to how many have migrated over the past decade to neighboring Colombia. Bogot\u00e1 alone, the capital, has received more than 600,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This spring, I flew to Colombia to see how that smaller and less prosperous country has handled its Venezuelan influx. In Bogot\u00e1 and C\u00facuta, the largest Colombian city along the Venezuelan border, I interviewed more than 30 migrants and public officials, humanitarian leaders and scholars, most of them in Spanish. I also asked dozens of regular Colombians for their views on the migrant tide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found that Colombia initially rolled out the welcome mat and, by many measures, absorbed this population with little harm and many benefits. Nearly 1.9 million Venezuelans gained paths to formal employment as well as Colombia\u2019s education and health care systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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More recently, however, Colombia\u2019s migrant integration has begun to falter due to the indifference of a new president, waning interest among international donors and a wave of xenophobia rippling through the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This reality has kept Venezuelan migrants such as 17-year-old Desir\u00e9 Borges at the margins of Colombian society. Desir\u00e9, pictured above with her 1-year-old daughter, told me about anti-Venezuelan stereotypes that have led to shame and despair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colombia \u2014 a decade into a muddled but essentially humane response to a migrant crisis \u2014 holds many lessons for Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Asneidis Vega in April stands in her kitchen in Ciudad Bol\u00edvar, a low-income section of southern Bogot\u00e1 that sprawls into mountains. Hyperinflation in Venezuela pushed Vega and her family to migrate to Colombia.
Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
What drove migrants from Venezuela<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Until 2017, Asneidis Vega and her husband were raising their three children in Los Puertos de Altagracia, a Venezuelan town near the northern city of Maracaibo. Both had office jobs for the municipality and earned two or three times the minimum wage. Their house had three bedrooms and two bathrooms. They had a garage, car and motorcycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Vega, who is 39, said hyperinflation made it increasingly hard to feed and clothe the kids: \u201cWe were all getting really skinny.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So her husband left for Colombia to find work for currency that held its value. Vega tried to stick it out with the kids, but it just got harder. She said the last straw was when their 12-year-old\u2019s school shoes wore out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe money I had was for us to eat,\u201d Vega told me. \u201cI didn\u2019t have money to buy him shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, she sold their car to buy clothes for the kids. And she scraped up money for bus tickets to Colombia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vega and I spoke at her kitchen table under a corrugated asbestos roof. The family now lives in Ciudad Bol\u00edvar, a section of Bogot\u00e1 that sprawls into mountains. The newer settlements, known as \u201cinvasions,\u201d have unpaved roads. Her family and many others have pirated electricity and they lack running water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only jobs she and her husband have found are unskilled and poorly paid. Some have required hourslong bus commutes. The kids often end up home alone. The family\u2019s standard of living is nothing like it was in Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But they\u2019re not starving. And the kids have shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ashley C\u00e1rdenas, 15, listens to her mother, Asneidis Vega, recount the family\u2019s decision to leave a once-comfortable life in Venezuela and move to Colombia. Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Vega\u2019s family was part of an exodus from Venezuela that swelled after an 18-month drop in oil prices that began in 2014. In Venezuela, which has the world\u2019s largest oil reserves, the economy hinges on that industry\u2019s boom-and-bust cycles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The drop in oil prices meant lower demand for the nation\u2019s currency, which drove up inflation. To fund social programs without much oil revenue, President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro printed more money, which pushed inflation even higher. By 2015, it was nearly 122%, according to the International Monetary Fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By then, there were medicine and food shortages. In 2018, inflation skyrocketed to 65,000%, the IMF reports. The currency, the bol\u00edvar, had become virtually worthless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those years began \u201ca new phase in Venezuela migration,\u201d said Sergio Guzm\u00e1n, a Colombia political risk consultant in Bogot\u00e1. \u201cIt was the poor and the destitute classes of Venezuela coming to our country, both as a transit point to another place where they had family or friends who had migrated \u2014 Peru, Ecuador, Chile \u2014 or up to the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But almost half those migrants, Guzm\u00e1n added, went no farther than Colombia. Since 2014, about 3 million Venezuelans have ended up there \u2014 roughly four times the number that have come to the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The only jobs Asneidis Vega and her husband have found in Colombia are poorly paid but her kids are no longer hungry, as they were before they fled the economic collapse in Venezuela. Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Danny D\u00edaz, a chef from Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, now lives near Asneidis Vega and her family in Ciudad Bol\u00edvar. Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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D\u00edaz heads into his modest home atop steep hills in southern Bogot\u00e1.<\/strong> Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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D\u00edaz has long battled a drug addiction. But he says he has not seen a doctor since arriving from Venezuela in 2019 without any ID papers. Colombia\u2019s migrant integration has not reached him<\/strong>.
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D\u00edaz finds comfort with his cats.<\/strong> Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>
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Critics of Maduro say the economic collapse driving the migration stemmed not just from the plunge in oil prices but also from economic mismanagement and government corruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maduro and his supporters counter that \u201ceconomic war on Venezuela\u201d was waged by his political opponents, the country\u2019s business elite and foreign powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cwar\u201d included sanctions imposed by the United States in 2015 against individuals tied to Maduro. The Obama administration had accused the government of \u201cserious human rights abuses\u201d and \u201cantidemocratic actions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting in 2017, the Trump administration broadened sanctions to target Venezuelan finances and the state-owned oil company \u2014 the economy\u2019s engine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During my weeks in Bogot\u00e1, I interviewed several experts who stressed that the economy had been melting down for years before those broad Trump sanctions. The experts included veteran Venezuelan human rights scholar Ligia Bol\u00edvar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, Bol\u00edvar told me the blockade exacerbated \u201cchaos\u201d and expanded the black market, including sales of drugs and minerals: \u201cWhenever you have an illegal economy, you also have armed groups. You have a country that\u2019s impossible to govern, impossible to handle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lenis Su\u00e1rez walks her children, Candy and Hidalgo, home from school in April near La Parada, a town on Colombia\u2019s Venezuelan border. Su\u00e1rez says she entered Colombia on a trocha<\/em>, an illegal foot trail. Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
How the migrants cross into Colombia<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

From their home in Puerto Cabello, a Caribbean port city in Venezuela, Lenis Su\u00e1rez and her two young kids took a bus in 2018 to a border town across from C\u00facuta, a sweltering Colombian city. They did not have passports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So they joined dozens of other migrants one morning before dawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of entering Colombia through a checkpoint on a bridge, they hiked with a guide through willows and alder trees on a rocky path along the T\u00e1chira, a knee-deep river whose branches crisscross the border like strands of a tattered braid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was dark. It was raining. And, suddenly, there was gunfire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone on the path started running,\u201d Su\u00e1rez, 24, told me. \u201cI tried to keep up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She ran with her 13-month-old but lost her grip. The baby fell to the ground and seemed to stop breathing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought he was going to die,\u201d Su\u00e1rez said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one stopped to help. They just kept running. \u201cI felt paralyzed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, a stranger appeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The woman kneeled over the baby, <\/strong>cleared his mouth, and started blowing into his mouth and nose. She pumped his small chest with her fingers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The baby responded. The stranger lifted him to Su\u00e1rez and ran ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI never saw her again,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To this day, Su\u00e1rez wonders whether the woman was an angel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lenis Su\u00e1rez and her children survived a harrowing journey across the border from Venezuela to start a new life in Colombia.<\/strong> Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Su\u00e1rez and her family live in a town near where they crossed the border from Venezuela in 2018.<\/strong>
Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Su\u00e1rez picks up her children, Candy and Hidalgo, from school in La Parada, a Colombian town on the Venezuelan border.<\/strong> Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Su\u00e1rez feared she would lose her youngest child on her journey from Venezuela to Colombia but a stranger came to his rescue, allowing them to start a new life.<\/strong> Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>
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The illegal foot trail that Su\u00e1rez traversed six years ago is one of dozens that cross Colombia\u2019s 1,378-mile border with Venezuela. They\u2019re known as trochas<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One hot day on a trocha<\/em> near C\u00facuta, weather-worn men with knapsacks strode past me. I also encountered a Colombian army patrol. The commander warned me not to peep over a ridge to see the Venezuelan side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You wouldn\u2019t want to be visible, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Criminal groups have long vied for control of the trochas<\/em>. The paths are vital for smuggling drugs, precious minerals, gasoline and, since Venezuela\u2019s economic collapse, migrants themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A foot trail near the Colombian city of C\u00facuta enables people to cross the country\u2019s border with Venezuela illegally. Scores of these trails cross that 1,378-mile frontier. Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Near C\u00facuta, several criminal groups operate on both sides and take advantage of migrants. Many Venezuelans arrive without any money, so they have to make a deal with a group that controls a trocha<\/em>, Dutch researcher Bram Ebus said. Ebus works in Colombia for the International Crisis Group, a conflict-prevention think tank based in Brussels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a woman, they\u2019ll force you to sell your body,\u201d Ebus said. \u201cIf you\u2019re a man, they start working with you to become active in one of the smaller criminal groups, collecting extortion payments or carrying illegal goods across the border.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goods include small amounts of cocaine and gold that are later gathered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Members of Tren de Aragua, a notorious Venezuelan gang that operates in the C\u00facuta area, have trailed migrations across Latin America. Alleged members have been arrested as far away as suburban Chicago<\/u><\/a>, although ties to the group\u2019s leaders in Venezuela appear flimsy<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The border appears to drive crime in nearby areas, including C\u00facuta, where the population in the metropolitan area has ballooned to more than 1 million. C\u00facuta\u2019s homicide rate last year, nearly 37 murders per 100,000 residents, was down a bit from a decade earlier but remained about 50% higher than both Colombia\u2019s as a whole and Chicago\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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C\u00facuta municipal council president Edison Contreras (left), photographed in City Hall this April, has proposed building a wall along Colombia\u2019s Venezuela border. But former mayor Jairo Y\u00e1\u00f1ez says any money for a border wall would be better spent on transit, internet access and water treatment plants.
Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

C\u00facuta municipal council president Edison Contreras is pushing for a border wall. He told me he borrowed the idea from former President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know that C\u00facuta does not have the economic capacity to invest in a wall but we can seek international cooperation,\u201d Contreras said as he showed me the council\u2019s meeting chamber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But business leader and former C\u00facuta Mayor Jairo Y\u00e1\u00f1ez says any money for a border wall would be better spent on transit, internet access and water treatment plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Y\u00e1\u00f1ez, whose mayoral tenure ended in December due to a one-term limit, won a U.S.-backed national award that month for migration policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said real security along the border would require massive economic investment \u201cto recover the dignity of people who unfortunately, due to hunger, have had to turn to crime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The perils of crossing into Colombia from Venezuela<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Meet a young mother who survived a harrowing journey across the border with her two young children to start a new life.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

LISTEN<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At her home near Colombia\u2019s Venezuelan border this April, Desir\u00e9 Borges, 17, sits with her daughter. She says xenophobic bullying by teachers led her to drop out of high school.
Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The xenophobia Venezuelan <\/strong>migrants face<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Desir\u00e9 Borges was 9 years old when her family arrived from Maracay, a city in central Venezuela. Her parents couldn\u2019t find jobs, so they became recyclers. They pull a big cart through border towns near C\u00facuta and pick through garbage to find bottles, cans and egg cartons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Desir\u00e9 saw the work as honorable. But her classmates saw a lot of Venezuelans doing it and shamed her for it. They accused her family of stealing and eating from garbage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said she faced another form of xenophobia when she was 15. Desir\u00e9 and her mother told me about it one evening in their home, built along a dirt road from construction remnants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Desir\u00e9\u2019s mom learned she was having sex with her boyfriend. So she took Desir\u00e9 to a clinic for a contraceptive implant, a small rod in the upper arm<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, when Desir\u00e9 went to school with a bandage over the rod, she was harassed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe teachers started bullying me, saying my mom got me the implant so I could go to bed with lots of men,\u201d Desir\u00e9 said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some teachers told her this was typical of Venezuelans, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Desir\u00e9 Borges begins to cry as she recounts the bullying she suffered in high school. Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It turns out Desir\u00e9 was already pregnant before she got the implant. Pregnancies at that age are not uncommon in either Colombia or Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, both countries have some of the Western Hemisphere\u2019s highest teen birth rates. Researchers have tied that to poverty and traditional gender roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Desir\u00e9 still faced harassment at school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI stayed in the bathroom, crying because I didn\u2019t want to go to school anymore,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Desir\u00e9 dropped out and, last year, had her baby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now she puts her daughter in a stroller every morning and helps her parents on their recycling rounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Desir\u00e9, now 17, would like to return to school to get ahead for her baby and parents. But when she spoke of the barriers to going back, tears streamed down her face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Desir\u00e9 Borges and her family sit for a phot at their home in an unsanctioned neighborhood outside Los Patios, Cucuta, Norte de Santander, Colombia, Saturday, April 13, 2024. | Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Desir\u00e9 Borges\u2019 family stand outside their home in an unsacntioned neighborhood outside of Los Patios, Cucuta, Norte de Santander, Colombia, Saturday, April 13, 2024. | Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Desir\u00e9 Borges holds her daughter as she receives a bag at their home in an unsanctioned neighborhood outside Los Patios, Cucuta, Norte de Santander, Colombia, Saturday, April 13, 2024. | Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Two children walk down the hill near an unsanctioned neighborhood outside Los Patios, Cucuta, Norte de Santander, Colombia, Saturday, April 13, 2024. | Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Desir\u00e9 Borges holds her daughter in between her legs at their home outside of Los Patios, Cucuta, Norte de Santander, Colombia, Saturday, April 13, 2024. | Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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A $100 Venezuelan Bol\u00edvar in the sink of Desir\u00e9 Borges family home that they consider worthless at their home in the Los Patios, Cucuta, Norte de Santander, Colombia, Saturday, April 13, 2024. | Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>
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Colombia and Venezuela share a language, a religion and that long, snaking border. Many Colombians have relatives who moved to Venezuela during one of its oil booms or as refugees during Colombia\u2019s long civil war. In Venezuela, those migrants were often branded drug dealers, thieves and prostitutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that Venezuelans have poured into Colombia, the tables are turned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During my time there, I heard that the Venezuelans have crowded out Colombian couriers and barbers, that they shouldn\u2019t be allowed to enroll their kids in school without papers, that they\u2019re using up medical resources, that they\u2019re pickpockets and extortionists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I heard such things not only from Colombians competing with the migrants for low-skilled work \u2014 or only from far-right nationalists. I heard it from highly educated professionals who consider themselves progressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Along Colombia\u2019s Venezuelan border, the C\u00facuta metropolitan area has ballooned to more than 1 million people.
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Pilar P\u00e1ez, a nursing supervisor who helps run a reproductive health unit at a public hospital in Bogot\u00e1, told me young Venezuelan women disregard her advice to use contraceptives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said they want to get pregnant to acquire Colombian nationality \u201cbecause it\u2019s easier for them and, of course, it also has economic benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It reminded me of the old canard about U.S. immigrants having so-called anchor babies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur culture is very different from that of Venezuela,\u201d P\u00e1ez added. \u201cThe promiscuity in Venezuela is striking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such bigotry has emerged in every South American country where Venezuelans have migrated, Human Rights Watch researcher Martina Rapido Ragozzino told me in Bogot\u00e1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this strong gender component in discrimination toward Venezuelans,\u201d Rapido said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The women are stigmatized as \u201ckeen to have sex for specific benefits or something in exchange,\u201d Rapido said, while the men are disparaged as thieves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Walking to the United States<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

MULTIMEDIA:<\/strong> Photographer Anthony Vazquez and reporter Chip Mitchell encountered 12 caminantes<\/em>, or walkers, near the beginning of a journey from their Venezuelan hometown to an impossibly faraway destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click HERE<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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These views show up as far away as Chicago. They can get in the way of finding apartments and jobs, migrants and advocates say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And xenophobia sometimes seeps into resentment among Chicagoans who believe they should be getting resources going to migrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see the Black folks getting that kind of help,\u201d Ald. Emma Mitts, who represents a West Side ward, said during a City Council debate in April over an additional $70 million<\/u><\/a> in funding for migrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEnglish is supposed to be the American language,\u201d Mitts added. \u201cBut, no, not now. Because you [won\u2019t] get a job if you don\u2019t speak bilingual. You\u2019re not qualified.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a new Colombia ministry set up by President Gustavo Petro, economist Liliana Morales Hurtado directs a Bogot\u00e1 office in charge of combating xenophobia nationwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExclusion and xenophobia will never generate anything more than cycles of violence and poverty,\u201d Morales told me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morales said her office is planning campaigns against xenophobia but, with only 10 employees in a country of 52 million people, those efforts will require international funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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President Gustavo Petro inherited Colombia\u2019s migrant integration effort when he took office in 2022 but he has not embraced it. (Photo: Fernando Vergara\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Petro himself has rarely denounced xenophobia, leaving the fight against it largely to nongovernmental groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura Jim\u00e9nez Cort\u00e9s heads one in Bogot\u00e1 called the Barometer. The group uses software to spot xenophobia in news reports and on social media. A finding that has surprised her is how often people speak up for migrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen there\u2019s something very xenophobic, there\u2019s a lot of people that respond against the message,\u201d Jim\u00e9nez said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But sparring online accomplishes only so much. Jim\u00e9nez said effective efforts in the physical world have included pro-migrant street theater, training for journalists, and protests denouncing migrant-bashing politicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Jim\u00e9nez had a message for Chicago. She said foes of xenophobia here could draw from the fact that so many of the city\u2019s residents are descendants of immigrants who once faced xenophobia themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMigrants need to know they have people backing them \u2014 that there are people who are denouncing discrimination,\u201d Jim\u00e9nez said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Already on the margins and ostracized<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Seventeen-year-old Desir\u00e9 Borges talks about the painful experience of bullying at her school in Colombia.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

LISTEN<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Zoheny Lugo and her kids this April in their kitchen in Palmitas, a low-income neighborhood of Bogot\u00e1, the Colombian capital. Lugo and her family are rebuilding the middle-class life they had to leave behind in Venezuela.
Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Integration in the face of marginalization<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

In Valencia, a big city in central Venezuela, Zoheny Lugo had a good job as an industrial safety supervisor for a freight company. It was 2018, more than three years into Venezuela\u2019s economic meltdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But her husband couldn\u2019t find work in his field, international business. So they moved with their 3-year-old to Bogot\u00e1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lacking permission to work, they put their careers on hold to find off-the-books jobs. Lugo ended up in a furniture factory. Her husband washed motorcycles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their first apartment was rundown and small. The neighborhood had \u201ca lot of drug use and thefts, and there were no parks,\u201d she told me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, Lugo obtained a Colombian permit for Venezuelan migrants. It allowed her into government-subsidized health care and formal employment \u2014 if she could find it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She eventually was hired by an international nonprofit to help other Venezuelan migrants with parenting and managing stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lugo\u2019s husband got one of the permits too and landed a job driving a city bus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lugo, who is 32, said they\u2019re now saving up for a bigger apartment in a safer neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\n
\"\"
Zoheny Lugo, at her family\u2019s Bogot\u00e1 apartment, left a career job at a freight company during Venezuela\u2019s economic meltdown to move to Colombia. She and her husband initially lacked permission to work so they took off-the-books jobs. Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
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\"\"
Eventually, Lugo got a permit for Venezuelan migrants and now works helping other migrants.
Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"\"
Lugo and her family want to move from their small place in Palmitas, a low-income neighborhood in southwestern Bogot\u00e1. Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Lugo and her husband are saving up for an apartment in a safer neighborhood for their son and daughter. Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This is how Colombia\u2019s Temporary Protection Permit is supposed to work. About two-thirds of the 2.9 million Venezuelan migrants in the country have received it, laying paths to formal jobs, health care, pensions, education and the financial system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An IMF study says integrating Venezuelan migrants into the formal labor market could expand Colombia\u2019s GDP<\/u> almost 4% by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Central Bank of Bogot\u00e1 economist Andrea Otero told me the Venezuelan influx hasn\u2019t lowered wages or the number of jobs for Colombians in the formal market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the informal labor market, however, Venezuelans have been a slight drag on wages and workforce participation, Otero said. Informal work ranges from street vending and house cleaning to agricultural piece work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even migrants with informal jobs pay sales taxes that fund social programs for low-income Colombians, Otero added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019ve also helped turn around parts of the economy, including Colombia\u2019s world-famous coffee industry. Venezuelans now pick most of the beans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, while migrants may be exerting downward pressure on wages for domestic work, more Colombian families can now afford the help. This frees up some high-skilled Colombians, especially women, to work outside the home, Otero said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Chicago, advocates say the new arrivals could help revitalize depopulated neighborhoods and schools. Migrant students have already helped reverse<\/u><\/a> the school system\u2019s enrollment decline. The migrants, if allowed, could also mitigate<\/u><\/a> local labor shortages in retail, restaurants and manufacturing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As in other parts of the world, however, Chicago\u2019s integration has triggered the same zero-sum rationale against helping migrants. A number of City Council members have complained that migrants are taking jobs and government resources their constituents deserve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m conflicted,\u201d Ald. Jeanette Taylor, who represents a mostly low-income South Side ward, said during the April council debate over the migrant funds. \u201cI know it\u2019s right to help other people. But when the hell are y\u2019all gonna help us?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What migrants in Chicago say they need most is permission to work<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Joe Biden last fall expanded<\/u><\/a> Temporary Protected Status eligibility to include almost half a million recent Venezuelan arrivals. The status would allow them to apply for work authorization. But migrants who arrived after July 2023 remain ineligible. And the status, set to expire in April 2025, provides no path to citizenship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Venezuela's
Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro shows off a watch given to him by the late soccer star Diego Maradona during a Latin American political summit April 24 in Caracas. Since Maduro took office in 2013, the country\u2019s economy has collapsed and about 7.7 million residents have emigrated, many to Colombia. (Photo: Ariana Cubillos\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Colombia\u2019s permit lasts 10 years and can lead to citizenship \u2014 in a country where the economy is less than 4% the size of the United States\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, as of this winter, the Colombia integration program had not reached hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants living there. Adults who have arrived since May 2023 are ineligible, even if they entered with a valid passport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researcher Mar\u00eda Clara Robayo of Bogot\u00e1\u2019s Rosario University said even some Venezuelans who received the Colombian card remain without basics such as the promised health care, a driver\u2019s license or a bank account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The loss of momentum in the migrant integration is due partly to President Petro. He inherited the effort when he took office in 2022. Instead of pushing it, he has focused on building relations with Maduro, the Venezuelan president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another factor is a reduction in aid from abroad, especially the United States. Many donors to Colombia\u2019s migrant integration have been shifting funds to places like Ukraine, Gaza and South Sudan. Some refugee groups in Colombia told me their international aid has shrunk over the past year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden\u2019s foreign aid proposal for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 would provide Colombia its smallest annual U.S. package since 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rapido, the Human Rights Watch researcher, said reducing funds could backfire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat the U.S. should do is work with the countries that are receiving these migrants to integrate them more strongly,\u201d Rapido said, \u201cso Venezuelans will have a place where they can redo their lives and they are not forced to keep migrating north to the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"David
After leaving Venezuela for Bogot\u00e1, David Delgado had to start over. He works collecting recyclable materials from parts of southwestern Bogot\u00e1 within reach of his Patio Bonito neighborhood. Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A redo was what David Delgadoneeded in 2019. The Venezuelan government had expropriated the Irish-owned paper mill where he worked. After the mill \u2014 located in San Felipe, a central Venezuelan city \u2014 shut down, he couldn\u2019t feed his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I boarded the bus for Colombia, I didn\u2019t even know where Colombia was,\u201d Delgado said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He crossed the border without a passport, so he didn\u2019t qualify for an early version of the permit enabling Venezuelan migrants to work. He had a hard time finding a job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI landed in recycling because there wasn\u2019t anything else to do,\u201d he told me while standing in the street below his family\u2019s cramped apartment in southwestern Bogot\u00e1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every morning, Delgado pulls a cart through neighborhoods to collect glass and aluminum, along with anything else he can sell at the junkyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a good day, he makes $8. He has five mouths to feed. The money doesn\u2019t go nearly far enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delgado, 54, now qualifies for legalized status. But getting the card would require a bus trip across town \u2014 another barrier in Colombia\u2019s migrant integration. He would have to give up the income from an entire day of recycling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eight dollars in exchange for the chance at a better future? This is not a sacrifice Delgado feels he can make today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Willing to work, in Colombia to stay<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
How the Lugo family, who moved to Bogot\u00e1 in 2018, successfully entered the mainstream economy.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

LISTEN<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
As a recycler, David Delgado pulls this cart every day to collect aluminum cans, glass jars and egg cartons from across southwestern Bogot\u00e1.
Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
How to help Venezuelan migrants in Colombia<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Many nonprofit groups are bringing humanitarian and other aid to impoverished Venezuelan migrants starting over in a new country.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

READ<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Cover Photo: Desir\u00e9 Borges, 17, holds her daughter in April outside their home in Los Patios, a town near Colombia\u2019s Venezuelan border. Though 1.9 million Venezuelan migrants in Colombia have gained paths to formal employment and public services, the integration has largely left out Desir\u00e9 and her family. Anthony Vazquez\/Sun-Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reporter:<\/strong> Chip Mitchell of WBEZ has focused on migration and Latin America for much of his career. That includes reporting for U.S. news outlets from seven Latin American countries, including Colombia, where he worked for three years. He produced this project with support from the Pulitzer Center, as a Richard C. Longworth Media Fellow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photographer:<\/strong>\u00a0Anthony Vazquez of the Chicago Sun-Times works primarily on the city\u2019s South and West sides. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, he worked for three years in Mexico City as a freelance photographer, mostly for the Associated Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaborators:<\/strong> I\u00f1igo Alexander L\u00f3pez in Bogot\u00e1 and Jonathan Maldonado in C\u00facuta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democracy Solutions Project:<\/strong> This story is part of a collaboration of WBEZ, the Sun-Times and the University of Chicago\u2019s Center for Effective Government with funding from the Pulitzer Center. We\u2019re examining critical issues facing our democracy in the run-up to the November elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher’s Notes: What Colombia can teach Chicago about managing a migrant wave<\/strong><\/em> <\/a>was first published by WBEZ<\/a>, and republished with permission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of Illinois Latino News\u2019 mission is to amplify the work of others in providing greater visibility and voice to Hispanic, Latino communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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