Venezuelan Migrants and Refugees in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Regional Profile
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Highlights
Venezuela's collapse sparked one of the hemisphere's largest displacement crises, leaving millions across Latin America facing legal status gaps and integration barriers.
- Venezuela's political and economic collapse has driven one of the largest displacement crises in the Western Hemisphere, with millions of migrants and refugees spread across Latin America and the Caribbean.
- Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, and Brazil host the largest numbers; many Venezuelans lack formal legal status, limiting access to work, education, and services.
- Venezuelans face barriers including documentation gaps, labor informality, xenophobia, and inadequate access to protection systems in host countries.
- Governments in the region have used varied tools—including temporary protection, regularization programs, and regional coordination—to respond, but gaps in protection and integration remain significant.
More than 5 million Venezuelans have left their country due to the ongoing political and economic crises there. More than 4 million of these refugees and migrants have moved to other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. This has challenged receiving-country governments to rapidly rethink their policies for admitting and granting status to newcomers, and to consider how to adapt education, health-care, and other systems to support both migrants and the communities in which they settle. The COVID-19 pandemic that hit the region in early 2020 has added a further layer of complexity, as well as new risks for people on the move.
This fact sheet presents a profile of refugees and migrants travelling across 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries in 2019—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay. The data analyzed come from the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), through which the International Organization for Migration (IOM) collects information about refugee and migrant demographic characteristics, labor market participation, trip details, difficulties encountered while travelling, and more.
This analysis sheds light on variations in the profile of migrants and refugees arriving in each country; the living conditions they experience upon arrival; and their intentions to remain, move onward to another country, or return to Venezuela. As Latin American and Caribbean countries race to contain the public-health crisis, DTM data also offer important insights into where migrants and refugees turn for health care, and how readily they have been able to access it.
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Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 Regional Mobility Patterns
3 A Demographic Profile of Surveyed Refugees and Migrants
4 Employment and Income
5 Health Conditions and Access to Care
6 Respondents’ Urgent Needs
7 Food Security
8 Reflections on the Future of Venezuelan Mobility Trends amid the Coronavirus Pandemic
Latin America and Caribbean Initiative
The Initiative combines rigorous research with direct engagement of governments, institutions, and stakeholders to help build orderly, rights-respecting migration systems across one of the world's most dynamic migration regions.
About the Global Program
The Global Program bridges policy advice, research, and candid dialogue to design effective migration policies, drawing on global evidence and anticipating the forces reshaping how people move.
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