Latin American and Caribbean countries have in recent years become
recipients of large-scale mass forced displacement, with two ongoing
crises driving much of this movement. About 3.9 million Venezuelans have
moved to other Latin American and Caribbean countries over the past
few years, the vast majority in 2018 and 2019, as Venezuela’s economy
imploded and internal political tensions worsened. At the same time,
between 80,000 and 100,000 Nicaraguans have fled to Costa Rica since
April 2018, when the Nicaraguan government began repressing political
protests in that country.
Countries in the region have generally tried to accommodate these recent
arrivals, with most providing basic education and emergency health care,
as well as legal status for many. But as these flows continue—shaped both
by the depth of the Venezuelan and Nicaraguan crises and by the porous
nature of borders in the region—governments are beginning to erect
barriers to entry and to struggle with the challenges of integrating large
numbers of new arrivals into local communities.