Inside the Roman Catholic Scalabrini church mission, the U. But the waiting, clamoring crowd outside is simply too large and chaotic. Villalba and her mechanic husband, whose wages were decimated by hyperinflation, decided to leave Venezuela because their kids were seriously underweight. The average Venezuelan lost 24 pounds last year due to an economic catastrophe caused by collapsed oil prices and the mismanagement of a dictatorial socialist regime. That humanitarian crisis has launched an epic wave of migrants.
By the end of this year an estimated three million people β a tenth of the population β will have left Venezuela since Most are pouring into neighboring countries like Brazil β and especially Colombia. The most recent Venezuelans that are coming, they are in the worst situations. Now is really the escape of the desperate.
Some come for food, then return. Some go on to countries like Ecuador. Indigents like Elio Merciett, an appliances salesman from Barquisimeto, Venezuela. What little he earns at odd jobs often gets stolen. Now is really the bottom of it. Even so, the U. This year it did urge countries receiving Venezuelans to grant them certain refugee safeguards such as healthcare, jobs and protection from deportation.
A Colombian man wearing a sign that reads "We Buy Hair" shouts for business from Venezuelan migrant and refugee women at the border crossing in Cucuta, Colombia. But expats in South Florida β home to the U.
Groups like the International Coalition for Venezuela are lobbying hard for it, says expat and Miami paralegal Rafael Moros.
