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July 29th, 2017 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : Colombia, on Friday, announced that it would grant temporary legal status to more than 150,000 Venezuelans who entered the country legally and overstayed their visas due to the deteriorating political and economic situation and the acute crisis in neighboring Venezuela.
The temporary measure is meant as relief for those Venezuelans who legally entered Colombia with a valid passport and visa at a border check, and who are now in the country illegally and unable to work. The measure is also aimed to protect those covered by the measure against abusive employers and conditions.
The measure will be valid for up to two years and also allows recipients of temporary legal status to receive social security benefits. Venezuelans must have entered Colombia before July 25, 2017 to be covered.
The measure does not apply to the about 100,000 or more Venezuelans who entered Colombia without passport or valid visa through the 2,200 kilometer (1,370 mile) border even though border officials are also reviewing their status and situation.
Colombian migration agency director Christian Kruger said Colombia was closely watching migratory patterns ahead of Venezuela’s contentious Sunday vote for a Constituent Assembly that will be tasked with rewriting the 1999 Constitution that was adopted under the late President Hugo Chavez.
Kruger noted that so far no changes have been observed, but that Colombia has prepared contingency plans to handle a sudden influx, such as sending 1,000 officials to border points. ‘Each one of them knows where to go, which team they are with,’ Kruger said.
Venezuelans cross over to Colombia to purchase food and other basic goods (El Heraldo).
The Andean sister-States have historically had a fluid border relationship with many crossing on a daily basis to attend school or to work. There has also been a contiguous fluidity and mobility of populations. Some decades ago an estimated 4 million Colombians left the conflict-troubled Colombia for the then rich Venezuela where the oil industry was booming.
In recent years this trend has reversed as the Colombian peace process set in and Venezuela’s economy came under intense stress when global oil prices plummeted in 2014. The economic stress aggravated political tensions, led to medical and food shortages, and aggravated the rate of violent crime in the country that already has one of the world’s highest homicide rates.
An estimated 25,000 Venezuelans enter Colombia daily at legal crossing points, either to buy food other supplies or to visit family. About the same number return each day, according to Colombian migration officials. Other Andean nations including Ecuador and Peru also say they have seen an uptick in Venezuelan migrants, though the Venezuelan government denies that. Officials in Venezuela have not released migration statistics in more than a decade.
CH/L – nsnbc 29.07.2017
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/07/29/colombia-grants-temporary-legal-status-to-some-150000-venezuelans-amidst-crisis/
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