Event Write-up: In Conversation with Felipe Munoz

On Tuesday, April 27, Migration and Refugee Policy Initiative (MRPI) and the Latin American Policy Association (LAPA) at Georgetown University jointly hosted an event entitled Mass Migration in Latin America: Current Trends, Opportunities, and Challenges with Felipe Munoz.

The conversation was moderated by Manuel Orozco, Adjunct Professor at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) at Georgetown. Munoz, the Migration Unit Chief at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and former advisor to the Colombian President on the Venezuelan border crisis, discussed the background and trends of the Latin American migration crisis as well as the IDB initiatives on the issue.

Emma Heiken, President of MRPI, began by welcoming event participants, and emphasizing the importance and relevance of the conversation given the ongoing migration issues in the Northern Triangle and across Latin America. After a short introduction, Heiken turned to Orozco to begin the conversation.

Orozco began by posing the question to Orozco: “How should we see the prospect of migration [across Latin America] during the Pandemic?”

Munoz argued it is necessary to learn to “cut through all the voices” and extract salient anecdotes to inform relevant policy decision-making. Munoz then pivoted to the trends he is seeing in

Latin America and in Columbia migration. He explained between 2015 and 2020 there was a 20% increase in the number of migrants, 60% being intra-regional migrants and most migrants being from Venezuela.

Outside of political and safety drivers, other contributing factors to increased irregular migration are trafficking, labor mobility, and food and climate insecurity. Munoz highlighted that natural disasters and climate change are making migration decisions increasingly complex and challenging to pinpoint.

The largest regional migration driver mentioned, however, is the crisis in Venezuela where 18% of the Venezuelan population or 4.6 million people have been displaced. Munoz said 85% of displaced Venezuelans are currently located in South America and South Caribbean, with primary host countries being Columbia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, and Brazil.

Munoz said there are numerous factors that make integrating migrants into host communities challenging. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 60% of migrants and refugees have mental health issues due to the increased stress and constraints caused by the global crisis. Further, the IDB Migration Unit has found there has been a substantial increase in regional xenophobic rhetoric across social media platforms. Other challenges are that the migration population is often younger than the local population and that there needs to be more political will to include migrants in post-covid recovery plans.

IDB is currently working with governments and across civil society support migration integration and best practices for determine legal pathways for migrants.

During the Q&A, Munoz fielded questions a variety of questions from the data collecting capacity of the IDB, climate mitigation and adaptation efforts, to security measures that should be taken to overt political migration.

Notably, Munoz mentioned that the IDB works with over 150 organizations, including IDMC and UN offices to ensure accuracy of data. He also mentioned the IDB’s climate change unit is working to build a framework to determine which regions are most high risk for climate related disasters so the IDB can work with communities to adapt to and prevent major migration movements. The climate unit is also soon to publish an operational guidance manual to build better climate change adaptation mechanisms.

Munoz concluded with a birds-eye statement on regional migration support efforts: “You not only need horizontal coordination to deal with migration on the community level. You also need vertical coordination between national and local governments.” He said there should also be coordination on the ground between operations and research units to best deal with the growing number of regional migrants.

By providing an overview of the shocks and drivers of mass migration across Latin America, the conversation underscored the ways in which migration characterizes the region. While many people in the United States posture toward the ongoing refugee crises in the Middle East and across Asia and Africa, it is important not to neglect the mass migration that is happening in our own backyard. We should work to craft better, more inclusive policies and pathways that bolster support for migrants, and those vulnerable to displacement, across Latin America.