Venezuela: Migrant Crisis set to Explode?

Back in March, I wrote a blog post about the exodus out of Venezuela. At the time, estimates were that 550,000 to 1,000,000 had left Venezuela for Colombia. The Miami Herald (Aug 31st) is currently using the 1 million figure. So since March, it is possible that the exodus from Venezuela to Colombia has either come close to doubling or has stayed flat.

The exodus hasn't stopped:

If Venezuela’s economic collapse continues, as seems likely, [Christian Kruger, the director of the Colombia's Migration Office said] “We estimate that the number of Venezuelans who will have moved to Colombia will not be 1 million, but 2 million over the next 12 months. And the same may happen in Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile and other countries.”

Latin America is trying to come to terms with this crisis:

Ecuador has called a meeting of 13 Latin American countries’ foreign ministers on Sept. 17 to discuss regional remedies to the Venezuelan refugee crisis. Among other things, they are expected to consider creating a registry of Venezuelan refugees, so that the migrants can be directed to countries or regions where their respective skills are most needed.

Too bad President Trump is anti-migration. We could probably use a number of migrants with skills in the oil industry.

The BBC (Aug 29th) adds how countries are dealing with this crisis.

Brazil: Brazil says it is sending its army to the Venezuelan border to "guarantee law and order" amid an influx of migrants fleeing the crisis-hit country.

Peru/Ecuador: This month, Peru began tightening its border by requiring passports instead of national ID cards from Venezuelan migrants. The first day the new rule was instituted, Peru reported a more than 50% drop in the number of migrants. But hundreds more without passports entered the country by seeking asylum. Similar regulations were introduced in Ecuador, only to be overturned by a court ruling.

Per the article, the UN sees this as similar to the Mediterranean crisis in 2015.

Via The Guardian (Aug 28th) it looks like Venezuela is taking a playbook out of the US:

Speaking at a congress of the ruling United Social party this week, Diosdado Cabello implied that images of Venezuelans fleeing through South America on foot had been manufactured. 

Some think there is an upside to this exodus:

[Javier Corrales, a Venezuela expert from Amherst College] said the exodus also enabled Maduro’s administration to co-opt new supporters by giving them the jobs of those who left. “The government has ways to profit from this tragedy … so they don’t really have an incentive to bring this to an end.”

I'd go the other way. It isn't a positive, but a negative. The ones with the most initiative are probably the ones leaving. I'd bet the replacement workers are not nearly as good as those who left. Therefore, productivity declines.