Venezuelan migration in South America: coordinating regional responses to a transboundary reception crisis

ABSTRACT

Migration is a policy field that is prone to transboundary reception crises due to the weakness of inter-state cooperation and global governance institutions’ incomplete architecture. Research suggests that the regional level is a more realistic policy arena where cooperation to coordinate responses may emerge. Our paper aims to explore and analyse the conditions under which coordinated responses to transboundary reception crises are present in (or absent from) regional migration governance. Below we develop an analytical model based on crisis management scholarship to examine coordination capacities at the regional level. Empirically, we comparatively assess the ability of old regional institutions (i.e. MERCOSUR, the South American Conference of Migration) and new ones (i.e. the Quito Process) to orchestrate responses to receive Venezuelan migrants across the region. Our findings reveal that coordination capacities remain scarce as regional institutions navigate from non-crisis to crisis times. This is largely because there was a shift in policy framing regarding immigrant reception, to self-interested national, regional and extra-regional actors promoting new regional mechanisms, and to the increasing complexity of regional migration governance as (new) competing actors emerge. Our conceptual and empirical contributions provide insights into how governance processes in South America have changed, particularly during crises.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• transboundary crisis
• MERCOSUR
• South American Conference of Migration
• Quito Process

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See online interview appendix.

2 Informed consent was given through signed consent forms all interviews.

3 This Directive established common standards for EU member states regarding the return of irregularly residing third-country nationals (i.e., longer detention periods before deportation and re-entry ban to the EU) (Baldaccini 2009).

4 South American countries ratified international law instruments such as the 1951 Refugee Convention, the 1960 Protocol and the 1990 UN Migrant Workers Convention. In 1984, ten South American countries signed the Cartagena Declaration on the protection of refugees.

5 MERCOSUR full member states (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay) and associated members (Bolivia, Chile) signed the agreement. Later Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru joined. Venezuela joined in 2012 but was suspended in 2017.

6 Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela have not ratified the agreement although Venezuela enjoyed full MERCOSUR membership until its suspension in 2017 (Bauer 2020).

7 The 1999 South American Meeting on Migration, Integration, and Development held in Lima, Peru agreed to create the CSM.

8 In the same year, most UNASUR member states started withdrawing from its treaty, dismantling it by the end of 2019.

9 In March 2021, the CSM was relaunched under the pro tempore presidency of Argentina, as per its webpage.

10 IOM and UNHCR established the Regional Interagency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (R4V) in 2018 to complement national and regional responses.

11 See https://www.unhcr.org/us/news/news-releases/refugees-and-migrants-venezuela-top-4-million-unhcr-and-iom. Last accessed 7 December 2023.

Additional information

Funding

This research is part of the ‘Global Governance and the European Union: Future Trends and Scenarios (GLOBE)’ project funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme programme (2019–2022). Andrea C. Bianculli would like to acknowledge funding support through the project ‘Rethinking the fundamentals of regions and regionalism. The European Union and Latin America through the lenses of regional regulatory governance’ (Reg-EULAC) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2019-105997GB-I00). Juan Carlos Triviño-Salazar would like to acknowledge support through the MUNMIGRA project (PID2021-129092OA-I00/MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER, UE) funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICIU), the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and the European Regional Development Fund.