Impact of Venezuela Migration on Latin America

Date: 

Tuesday, November 16, 2021, 12:00pm to 1:20pm


For a recording of this event, please click here.

Of the more than 5.6 million Venezuelans who have left Venezuela since 2017, more than 70 percent have migrated to Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Despite their stated intention to remain in the countries that received them, they often lack regular migration status, and they have suffered from unemployment or employment discrimination and restricted access to health care and local schools. Their presence has also generated new political divides in the countries in which they have settled. Panelists will explore a range of impacts of Venezuelan migration on the region.

Speakers: Feline Freier, Associate Professor of Political Science, Universidad del Pacifico; João Carlos Jarochinski Silva, Professor in Society and Borders Program, Federal University of Roraima; Ronal Rodriguez, Observatorio Venezuela, Universidad del Rosario 
Moderated by: Frances Hagopian, Jorge Paulo Lemann Senior Lecturer on Government, Harvard University

Event supported by Memorial da América Latina, São Paulo

Luisa Feline Freier is an Associate Professor of political science at the Universidad del Pacífico in Lima, Peru. Her research focuses on migration and refugee policies and laws in Latin America, south-south migration, and the Venezuelan displacement crisis. She has published widely in both academic and media outlets, and has been interviewed on the Venezuelan displacement crisis in international media. She has provided consultation services to various international institutions and organizations such as Amnesty International, the European Union, the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and the World Bank. She is an IOM Migration Research and Publishing High-Level Adviser. Professor Freier has been a fellow of the Fulbright program, the Naumann Foundation for Freedom, and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). She is an affiliate of the Refugee Law Initiative of the University of London. She holds a PhD in political science from the London School of Economics, a master's degree in Latin American and Caribbean studies from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a bachelor's in economics from the Universität zu Köln in Germany.

João Carlos Jarochinski Silva is Professor at Universidade Federal de Roraima. He has a postdoctoral degree at the Núcleo de Estudos de População “Elza Berquó” (NEPO)—Unicamp. He holds a PhD in Social Sciences from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo and a Master’s degree in International Law from Universidade Católica de Santos. He has been working with migration issues since his Master’s degree and is actively involved in the assistance to and research on Venezuelans in Boa Vista (Roraima).

Ronal F. Rodríguez (@ronalfrodriguez) is an official spokesperson and researcher at the Venezuelan Observatory of the Faculty of International, Political and Urban Studies of the Universidad del Rosario. Ronal holds two BAs in Political Science and International Relations, and a MPP -Master in Political Science. He is currently a Professor at the Universidad del Rosario and the Universidad de La Sabana in Bogotá. Ronal also coordinates the project "Bitácora Migratoria" that seeks to provide technical support in the implementation of the Temporary Statute of Protection for Venezuelan Migrants ETPV"; he also works as Director of the radio station program: "This is not a border, this is a river" (@UrosarioRadio). Ronal is a columnist in Colombia for El Espectador and La Silla Vacía.

Frances Hagopian is Jorge Paulo Lemann Senior Lecturer on Government. She specializes in the comparative politics of Latin America, with emphasis on democratization, political representation, political economy, and religion and politics. Hagopian is author of Reorganizing Representation in Latin America (2014, Cambridge University Press), editor of Religious Pluralism, Democracy, and the Catholic Church in Latin America (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), co-editor (with Scott Mainwaring) of The Third Wave of Democratization in Latin America: Advances and Setbacks (Cambridge 2005), and author of Traditional Politics and Regime Change in Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and numerous journal articles and book chapters. Her current work focuses on the establishment of a social welfare regime in Brazil, and the political economy of inequality in Latin America. She previously taught at the University of Notre Dame, where she was Director of the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, as well as Tufts and Harvard Universities. She has also been a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an Associate Member of Nuffield College, Oxford.

Presented in collaboration with Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Rede de Cooperação UNITWIN para Integração da América Latina, da Fundação Memorial da América Latina