U.N. sees rise in Venezuelan refuge seekers

LIMA, Peru — When Johan Alvarez was unable to provide more than one meal a day for his young family, he knew it was time to leave Venezuela.

With his wife and infant son, the 25-year-old embarked on a lengthy journey by bus through three nations to reach Peru earlier this year.

Now they are among a growing number of Venezuelans asking to be recognized as refugees.

A United Nations report released Wednesday finds that Venezuelans represent the largest group worldwide filing new asylum claims. Those fleeing the South American nation made more than one in five of all asylum requests in 2018, higher than the number of claims made by people escaping Afghanistan and Syria.

But Venezuela is not in the midst of war, and many foreign governments are reluctant to recognize the migrants as refugees.

As the country’s crisis continues, the number fleeing is rising. The United Nations estimates there are now 4 million Venezuelans living abroad — a quarter of whom have fled since November.

The widely used definition of refugee is someone who has fled his homeland because of persecution, war or violence. Asylum claimants typically have to show that they cannot return because of well-founded fears of persecution because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular group.

But a more encompassing definition in the 1984 Cartagena Declaration includes people fleeing hunger and poverty resulting from the breakdown of rule of law — conditions that a much wider group of Venezuelans are experiencing.

To date, more than 460,000 Venezuelans have sought asylum, including nearly 350,000 in 2018 alone, according to the U.N. A large number of those claims are being filed in Peru, where some 800,000 Venezuelans now reside.

Last year, Peru received 192,500 claims — a number that has created a backlog. Just over 1,000 Venezuelans have gotten their asylum requests approved. Worldwide, only about 21,000 Venezuelans have been recognized as refugees to date.

The U.N. report released Wednesday notes the Venezuela migration crisis has increasingly taken on the “characteristics of a refugee situation” and says it is clear that international protection considerations “are applicable to the majority of Venezuelans.” Such protections could spare them from deportation.

“People fleeing Venezuela are doing so in increasingly complex circumstances,” said Federico Agusti, the U.N. refugee agency’s representative in Peru. “It’s not just a humanitarian crisis. The reason they had to leave is because their life was in danger.”

David Smolansky, a Venezuela opposition leader who himself escaped in a journey through the jungle of Brazil, is now the coordinator of a migrant working group led by the Washington-based Organization of American States. He has been encouraging nations to apply the Cartagena Declaration, which was signed by several of the Latin American nations where Venezuelans are now arriving.

“If you give them refugee status, it will guarantee protection,” he said. “I think it will create a commitment from the international community to cooperate more.”

Accepting the broader definition of a refugee is particularly relevant in Colombia. Despite taking in an estimated 1.3 million Venezuelans, it has received just 2,729 asylum claims, according to U.N. data.

The United States has received some 81,800 asylum requests from Venezuelans, and President Donald Trump recently said his administration is considering granting legal temporary protective status to thousands of Venezuelans.

In Peru, the number of asylum applications is soaring partly because it has become easier to make requests. At the border, Venezuelans can submit their documents for refugee status, which is one of the only ways they can enter after the implementation of new requirements that made it impossible to cross without a passport.

For Alvarez, applying for such status was his best option.

Returning to Venezuela, he said, would be the equivalent of returning to a nation at war.