Venezuela situation

2023 situation overview

Cross-border displacement and mixed movements from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (Venezuela) continued in 2023, despite a small increase in spontaneous – and some forced – return movements. As of the end of 2023, there were over 7.7 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants globally, 6.5 million of them in Latin America and the Caribbean. This included a year-to-year net increase of 661,800 Venezuelan refugees and migrants in the Americas, 504,200 of whom remained in the Latin American and Caribbean sub-region. Over 125,800 Venezuelans were recognized as refugees worldwide in, 66% in the Americas.   

During 2023, over 328,000 Venezuelan refugees and migrants crossed Panama’s Darien jungle on their journey northward, more than double the 150,300 who made the perilous crossing in 2022. According to UNHCR's Protection Monitoring reports, nearly half of the Venezuelans interviewed in 2023 had come directly from Venezuela without stopping in Colombia.   

68% of all Venezuelan refugees and migrants in Latin America and the Caribbean, 4.4 million people in all, faced difficulties accessing food, shelter, health care, education and formal employment in their host countries, despite efforts to regularize or recognize their asylum claims and integrate them. The Refugee and Migrant Needs Analysis (RMNA) for 2023, published by the Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (R4V), which is co-led by UNHCR, showed that approximately 19% of refugee and migrant children were not attending school but supporting their families with informal and underpaid jobs. While more than 60% of refugees and migrants from Venezuela held a regular migratory or refugee/asylum status, this was not enough to ensure a dignified life and adequate access to basic rights and services.   

UNHCR worked to strengthen access to asylum and protection-oriented alternative legal stay arrangements, while also improving and stabilizing the situation of Venezuelan displaced populations through responsibility-sharing arrangements across the region.  

UNHCR supported host governments in preventing and responding to forced displacement and implementing protection and solution responses – including access to territory, dignified reception, fair and efficient asylum procedures, other legal-stay arrangements, socioeconomic inclusion and third-country solutions. Brazil recognized over 128,000 Venezuelans as refugees and granted over 411,000 temporary resident permits. Colombia hosted 2.9 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants, with 2.5 million (86%) registered. Nearly 2 million, 70%, had temporary protection permits. In Ecuador, of the 259,000 people registered, over 201,000 received a certificate of temporary stay. Peru launched a regularization programme in May 2023, which 214,000 people took advantage of, and approved a plan to address the backlog of asylum applications in the country. Chile implemented a biometric registration process, identifying over 182,000 people who required a formalized status in the country, predominantly Venezuelans in need of international protection, while the Dominican Republic granted a stay arrangement for some 25,000 Venezuelans. In the United States of America, some 81,000 Venezuelans arrived in the country under the expanded parole process and over 239,000 enjoyed Temporary Protected Status.  

Working with UNHCR, the Inter-American Development Bank targeted projects to advance labour market integration of displaced populations across Latin America and the Caribbean. UNHCR also strengthened ties with the International Financial Corporation to expand financial inclusion and job opportunities for the people with and for whom UNHCR works.  

As part of a wider comprehensive strategy to address human mobility in the region, UNHCR, together with IOM, supported the Movilidad Segura (Safe Mobility), an initiative led by the United States of America. Safe Mobility Offices (SMO) were operational in Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Ecuador and open to Venezuelan nationals in all those countries except Guatemala. As of 31 December 2023, a total of 13,859 refugees were referred from the four SMO countries for resettlement to the United States, and an additional 285 refugees were referred to Spain.   

According to the comprehensive R4V analysis of the needs of refugees and migrants (RMNA), some 4.4 million refugees and migrants from Venezuela were in need of humanitarian and protection assistance in 2023. The R4V inter-agency response reached 2.2 million refugees, migrants and affected host community members with assistance (largely food, protection and health-related interventions). The revised RMRP for 2024, which brings together 248 partners to implement humanitarian, protection, and socioeconomic integration activities to assist 2.9 million refugees, migrants and affected members of the host community now also includes an enhanced collaboration with the Humanitarian Country Team in Venezuela, thereby acknowledging the imperative of aligned approaches of the RMRP and the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) to respond to the humanitarian crisis more effectively within Venezuela as well as the humanitarian, protection and integration needs of Venezuelan refugees and migrants in the region.  

As spontaneous return movements to Venezuela increased, including some deportations, support to communities receiving returnees was required. In this context, UNHCR worked in close coordination with national and local institutions and existing networks to implement community-based interventions in States prioritized by the HRP. In prioritized communities, particularly in border areas, UNHCR helped address basic needs for over 1,370,000 vulnerable individuals by supplying core relief items, ranging from solar-powered lamps, blankets, mattresses, kitchen utensils to hygiene kits, walking aids and wheelchairs. This assistance ran in parallel with support to waystations and reception capacities for people in mobility, as well as medical and temporary shelter facilities.   

UNHCR, along with other UN agencies, NGOs, and civil society, also supported the implementation of the HRP to assist those in need inside Venezuela.