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Government through Inaction: The Venezuelan Migratory Crisis in Ecuador

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2020

Christiaan Beyers  and
Esteban Nicholls
Christiaan Beyers*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of International Development Studies and PhD Programme in Cultural Studies, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
Esteban Nicholls
Affiliation:
Aggregate Professor and Academic Coordinator of Master's Programme in Latin American Studies, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Quito, Ecuador
*
*Corresponding author. Email: chrisbeyers@trentu.ca.
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Abstract

This article analyses strategies for channelling a migrant population out of a country by indirect means. Specifically, we examine the response of the Ecuadorean state to the influx of Venezuelan newcomers since 2015. We argue that this response has been characterised by inaction, rooted not in policy failures or bad governance, but rather in a strategic governmental rationality. We show how migrants are ‘herded’ out of the country as a result of a form of indirect government that works differently from other ‘anti-immigrant’ policies like forced deportations or incarceration at the border, and yet produces similar outcomes.

Spanish abstract

Spanish abstract

Este artículo analiza las estrategias utilizadas para canalizar por medios indirectos a una población migrante fuera de un país. Específicamente examinemos la respuesta del estado ecuatoriano a la llegada de venezolanos desde 2015. Señalamos que tal respuesta se ha caracterizado por inacción, enraizada no en fallas en las políticas o mal gobernanza, sino en una racionalidad gubernamental estratégica. Mostramos cómo los migrantes son ‘pastoreados’ fuera del país como resultado de una forma de gobierno indirecto que funciona de forma diferente a otras políticas ‘anti-inmigrantes’ como deportaciones forzadas o encarcelamiento en la frontera, aunque produce resultados similares.

Portuguese abstract

Portuguese abstract

Este artigo analisa as estratégias utilizadas para canalizar, por meios indiretos, populações migrantes para fora de um país. Especificamente, examinamos a política do Equador, desde 2015, para lidar com imigrantes Venezuelanos recém chegados. Argumentamos que essa política tem sido caracterizada pela falta de ação, cuja causa não são falhas políticas ou má governança, mas sim uma racionalidade governamental estratégica. Mostramos como imigrantes são ‘conduzidos’ para fora do país por uma forma de governança indireta que funciona de forma diferente doutras políticas de ‘anti-imigração’ como deportações forçadas ou encarceramento nas fronteiras, embora obtém resultados muito parecidos.

Keywords

VenezuelaEcuadormigrationgovernmentalitystrategic inactionEcuadorVenezuelamigracióngobernabilidadinacción estratégicaEquadorVenezuelamigraçãogovernamentabilidadefalta de ação estratégica
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , August 2020 , pp. 633 - 657
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 International Organization for Migration (IOM)/United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), ‘Venezuelan Outflow Continues Unabated, Population Abroad Now Stands at 3.4 Million’, 22 Feb. 2019, available at www.iom.int/news/venezuelan-outflow-continues-unabated-population-abroad-now-stands-34-million, last access 20 March 2020.

2 The Regional Platform of Coordination for Refugees and Migrants of Venezuela, established by the UNHCR and IOM in Sept. 2018, projects that the Venezuelan ‘population in need’ in Ecuador will be 350,849 in 2019, second only to Colombia at 640,000, the total population and GNP of which exceed Ecuador's by more than three times each (IOM/UNHCR, ‘Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela, January–December 2019’, p. 52, available at https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/67282, last access 20 March 2020.

3 Foucault, Michel, ‘Governmentality’, in Rabinow, Paul and Rose, Nikolas (eds.), The Essential Foucault: Selections from the Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984 (New York: New Press, 2003), p. 235Google Scholar.

4 Walters, William and Haahr, Jens Henrik, ‘Governmentality and Political Studies’, European Political Science, 5: 1 (2005), pp. 288–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 ‘Lenín Moreno habló sobre Rafael Correa y migración venezolana en CNN’, El Comercio, 5 Dec. 2018, available at www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/moreno-correa-entrevista-cnn-aristegui.html, last access 20 March 2020.

6 See, for example, ‘Casi 5.000 venezolanos entraron al país por Sucumbíos en junio’, El Universo, 31 June 2018.

7 Interview with Daniel Regalado, Venezuelan Citizens representative in Ecuador, 8 April 2018.

8 Interview with Juan Pablo Terminiello, national protection officer, UNHCR Ecuador, 17 April 2018; UNHCR, ‘UNHCR chief highlights Ecuador's commitment to solutions for refugees’, 5 July 2016, available at www.refworld.org/docid/577cdf654.html, last access 20 March 2020.

9 UNHCR, ‘Global Trends 2015, Table 1. Refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced persons (IDPs), returnees (refugees and IDPs), stateless persons, and others of concern to UNHCR by country/territory of asylum, end-2015’, available at www.acnur.org/fileadmin/scripts/doc.php?file=fileadmin/Documentos/Estadisticas/2016/Global_Trends_2015, last access 20 March 2020.

10 Gottwald, Martin, ‘Protecting Colombian Refugees in the Andean Region: The Fight against Invisibility’, International Journal of Refugee Law, 16: 4 (2004), pp. 517–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 See, for example, Pugh, Jeffrey, ‘Universal Citizenship through the Discourse and Policy of Rafael Correa’, Latin American Politics and Society, 59: 3 (2017), pp. 98–121CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 The cut-off date for our research for this article is Jan. 2019.

13 Li, Tania Murray, ‘Beyond “The State” and Failed Schemes’, American Anthropologist, 107: 3 (2005), p. 387CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Walters, William, ‘Deportation, Expulsion and the International Police of Aliens’, in de Genova, Nicholas and Peutz, Natalie (eds.), The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space and the Freedom of Movement (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2010), p. 70Google Scholar.

15 Foucault, ‘Governmentality’.

16 de Genova, Nicholas, ‘Migrant “Illegality” and Deportability in Everyday Life’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 31: 1 (2002), pp. 419–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 See, for example, ‘Venezolanos en Ecuador: ¡Es muy duro saber que estamos solos y esclavizados!’, Aleteia, 19 Aug. 2018, available at https://es.aleteia.org/2018/08/19/venezolanos-en-ecuador-es-muy-duro-saber-que-estamos-solos-y-esclavizados/, last access 20 March 2020.

18 In this sense we go beyond studies that treat state capacity as a background constraint to humanitarian work (for example, Lemaitre, Julieta, ‘Humanitarian Aid and Host State Capacity: The Challenges of the Norwegian Refugee Council in Colombia’, Third World Quarterly, 39: 3 (2018), pp. 544–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

19 Dean, Mitchell, Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society (London: Sage, 1999), p. 38Google Scholar.

20 Margheritis, Ana, ‘“Todos Somos Migrantes” (We Are All Migrants): The Paradoxes of Innovative State-led Transnationalism in Ecuador’, International Political Sociology, 5: 2 (2011), pp. 198–217CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ana Margheritis and Javier Arcentales Illescas, ‘Ejercicio de los derechos de las personas inmigrantes y refugiadas en Ecuador durante el año 2012’, Repositorio UASB, 2012, available at http://repositorio.uasb.edu.ec/bitstream/10644/4109/1/Arcentales-Ejercicio.pdf, last access 20 March 2020.

21 Thus Presidential Decree 1182 of 2012 instituted new restrictive registration procedures, which have led to increasing risk of refoulement (i.e., deportation to unsafe countries). Even asylum-seeker status became much more difficult to attain, as the decree established a preliminary ‘admissibility process’, where asylum applications are screened for being ‘manifestly unfounded’ or ‘abusive’. See Coalición por las Migraciones y el Refugio, ‘Análisis del Proyecto de Ley de Movilidad Humana’, Quito, 2015; Manuel Góngora-Mera, Gioconda Herrera and Conrad Müller, ‘The Frontiers of Universal Citizenship: Transnational Social Spaces and the Legal Status of Migrants in Ecuador’, Working Paper No. 71, desiguALdades.net, 2014, available at www.desigualdades.net/Resources/Working_Paper/71-WP-Gongora-Mera-Herrera-Mueller-Online.pdf?1396440530, last access 20 March 2020.

22 ‘ACNUR: 30.000 ciudadanos venezolanos llegaron a Ecuador en la primera semana de agosto del 2018’, El Comercio, 10 Aug. 2018, available at www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/acnur-venezolanos-ecuador-puentederumichaca-informe.html, last access 20 March 2020.

23 Interview with Daniel Regalado, 8 April 2018. According to a Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) survey conducted by the IOM and the Vice-Ministry of Human Mobility in Sept./Oct. 2018, 53.5 per cent of Venezuelans in Ecuador are male, 88 per cent are young adults between the ages of 18 and 40, and 74.6 per cent are single. The survey was conducted in Rumichaca, Huaquillas and Quito, with a sample of 1,953 Venezuelan newcomers. See IOM, ‘DTM Ronda 2 – Monitoreo de flujo humana Ecuador – agosto–septiembre 2018’, Sept. 2018, available at https://reliefweb.int/report/ecuador/dtm-ronda-2-monitoreo-de-flujo-de-poblaci-n-venezolana-ecuador-agosto-septiembre-2018, last access 20 March 2020.

24 Grupo Articulador Ecuador del Plan de Acción de Brasil (GAE–PAB), ‘La vulneración de derechos a la población venezolana en su paso por Ecuador y a la población ecuatoriana que desea retornar de Venezuela (caso Ecuador)’, May 2018, available at www.misionscalabriniana.org.ec/sitio/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Vulneraci%C3%B3n-de-derechos-a-poblaci%C3%B3n-venezonala-Informe-de-Ecuador-para-CIDH.pdf, last access 20 March 2020.

25 Daniel Regalado, correspondence with authors, 10 April 2018. The recent state of emergency does not fundamentally contradict this claim, as discussed at more length in the final section of the article.

26 Interview with Mónica Barreno, Asociación Solidaridad y Acción, 5 April 2018.

27 Misión Scalabriniana, ‘Ante el masivo desplazamiento de población venezolana se requiere una respuesta desde el enfoque de derechos’, March 2018, available at www.misionscalabriniana.org.ec/sitio/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Comunicado-urgente-tras-visita-a-Rumichaca-marzo-2018-1.pdf, last access 20 March 2020.

28 State officials often invoke this explanation. See, for example, President Moreno's statement in General Secretariat of Communication of the Presidency, ‘Ecuador garantiza cumplimiento de los derechos humanos a migrantes venezolanos’, 16 Aug. 2018, available at www.comunicacion.gob.ec/ecuador-garantiza-cumplimiento-de-los-derechos-humanos-a-migrantes-venezolanos/, last access 20 March 2020.

29 Interview with Patricio Benalcázar, Province of Pichincha Ombudsman, 6 April 2018.

30 Interview with Lilia Granja, national director of AAE, 5 April 2018.

31 Interviews with Giovanna Tipán Barrera, director of community development, GAD Pichincha, 19 April 2018; and Xavier Gudiño Valdiviezo, director of strategic litigation, AAE, 17 April 2018.

32 ‘Reubican a grupo de venezolanos que se encontraba en el norte de Quito’, Diario Las Américas, 18 Nov. 2018, available at www.diariolasamericas.com/america-latina/reubican-grupo-venezolanos-que-se-encontraba-el-norte-quito-n4166736, last access 20 March 2020.

33 Interview with Patricio Benalcázar, 6 April 2018.

34 ‘Ecuador acoge más refugiados que toda América Latina’, La Hora, 20 June 2018, available at www.lahora.com.ec/quito/noticia/1102165248/ecuador-acoge-mas-refugiados-que-toda-america-latina, last access 20 March 2020.

35 MREMH, Plan Nacional de Movilidad Humana (Quito: MREMH, 2018), p. 22Google Scholar.

36 Ibid.

37 This is corroborated by the IOM survey, which found that while only 30 per cent of respondents at Rumichaca wanted to stay in Ecuador, in Quito the figure was 90 per cent. See IOM, ‘Monitoreo de flujo humana’, p. 7.

38 Interview with Daniel Regalado, 8 April 2018.

39 Misión Scalabriniana, ‘Ante el masivo desplazamiento’. See also ‘Ecuador es un país de paso para mayoría de venezolanos’, El Universo, 19 Feb. 2018, available at www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2018/02/19/nota/6630208/ecuador-es-pais-paso-mayoria-venezolanos, last access 20 March 2020. Difficulties in obtaining documents from Venezuela include exorbitant fees in relation to wages, bureaucratic obstruction, bribes by mafias within the administrative service, direct political interference, and ‘no paper’ (or polycarbonate sheets) for printing passports (‘¿Por qué es tan difícil sacar el pasaporte en Venezuela?’, El Espectador, 12 Feb. 2018).

40 Interview with Xavier Gudiño Valdiviezo, 17 April 2018. The IOM Survey found that 75 per cent of Venezuelan migrants in Quito and 64 per cent in Guayaquil do not have regular status (IOM, ‘Monitoreo de flujo humana’, p. 5).

41 De Genova and Peutz (eds.), The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty; de Genova, ‘Migrant “Illegality”’; Behrman, Simon, ‘Legal Subjectivity and the Refugee’, International Journal of Refugee Law, 26: 1 (2014), pp. 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 ‘En cifras: todo lo que debe saber sobre la migración venezolana’, El Tiempo, 28 Nov. 2018, available at www.eltiempo.com/mundo/venezuela/cifras-de-la-migracion-venezolana-en-colombia-septiembre-de-2018-290680, last access 20 March 2020.

43 Organization of American States, ‘CIDH saluda medidas adoptadas por Colombia para regularización migratoria y acceso a derechos de personas venezolanas’, press release, 17 Aug. 2018, available at www.oas.org/es/cidh/prensa/comunicados/2018/184.asp, last access 20 March 2020.

44 ‘Más de 820.000 venezolanos quedan regularizados’, El Tiempo, 2 Aug. 2018, available at www.eltiempo.com/politica/gobierno/santos-firmo-decreto-para-regularizar-a-venezolanos-251280, last access 20 March 2020.

45 The border is most open in the central highlands, where the majority of Venezuelans cross, and where most cross-border economic activity occurs.

46 MREMH, ‘Emisión de Visa de Turismo (90 días)’, available at www.cancilleria.gob.ec/emision-de-visa-de-turismo-90-dias/, last access 20 March 2020.

47 ‘Exigencia de pasaporte desata paso irregular de venezolanos a Ecuador’, El Universo, 21 Aug. 2018, available at www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2018/08/21/nota/6915947/exigencia-pasaporte-desata-paso-irregular-venezolanos, last access 20 March 2020; ‘Venezolanos ingresan al país sin el pasado judicial’, El Norte, 30 Jan. 2019, available at www.elnorte.ec\\carchi\\ingresan-al-pais-sin-el-pasado-judicial-DC307360, last access 20 March 2020.

48 UNHCR, ‘Venezuela Situation: Responding to the Needs of People Displaced from Venezuela. Supplementary Appeal, January–December 2018’, March 2018, available at http://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/UNHCR%20Venezuela%20Situation%202018%20Supplementary%20Appeal_0.pdf, last access 20 March 2020; interview with Juan Pablo Terminiello, 17 April 2018. Concerning the refugee status determination (RSD) process, someone who has been forcibly displaced must approach the relevant authorities within 90 days of arriving. Once screened for admissibility (against the claim being fraudulent or unfounded), the applicant formally becomes an ‘asylum-seeker’, and proceeds to gather the necessary documentation for the refugee visa. If rejected, a person has 15 days to leave the country or appeal. However, very few Venezuelans get to this stage of having their application brought to the point of a decision.

49 GAE–PAB, ‘La vulneración de derechos’.

50 World Data, ‘Asylum applications and refugees in Ecuador’, available at www.worlddata.info/america/ecuador/asylum.php, last access 20 March 2020.

51 ‘Ecuador acoge más refugiados que toda América Latina’, La Hora, 20 June 2018.

52 Basic documents needed include passport, birth certificate, etc. We discuss additional requirements later in this article.

53 Interview with Daniel Regalado, 8 April 2018; interview with Lilia Granja, 5 April 2018.

54 Applying for any of these visas involves an additional US$50 application fee, and requires presentation of a valid passport (with an immigration stamp of entry into the country), an original certificate of criminal record and demonstrated legal means of livelihood on the part of the applicant and his or her dependent family group. Moreover, all these visas expire after two years, and then need to be renewed at the same cost.

55 Video interview with Santiago Chávez, vice-minister of human mobility, El Comercio, 7 Aug. 2018, available at www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/visa-venezolanos-cancilleria-santiagochavez-migracion.html, last access 23 March 2020.

56 GAE–PAB, ‘La vulneración de derechos’.

57 Santiago Ripoll, Lizbeth Navas-Alemán and contributors, ‘Xenofobia y discriminación hacia refugiados y migrantes venezolanos en Ecuador y lecciones aprendidas para la promoción de la inclusión social’, Social Sciences in Humanitarian Action, Nov. 2018, available at www.socialscienceinaction.org/resources/xenofobia-y-discriminacion-hacia-refugiados-y-migrantes-venezolanos-en-ecuador-y-lecciones-aprendidas-para-la-promocion-de-la-inclusion-social/, last access 20 March 2020.

58 Ministry of Labour, Ministerial Agreement MDT-2018-006, 24 Jan. 2018, available at www.trabajo.gob.ec/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/mdt-2018-0006_derechos_laborales_de_los_migrantes_extranjeros_en_el_ecuador.pdf, last access 20 March 2020.

59 Article 8[1] of Metropolitan Ordinance 208, Quito.

60 Interviews with five anonymous Venezuelan vendors in Quito in April 2018.

61 ‘8.617 venezolanos laboran en el sector privado de Ecuador de manera formal’, El Comercio, 16 Sept 2018, available at www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/venezolanos-sectorprivado-contratos-ecuador.html, last access 20 March 2020.

62 Daniela Célleri, ‘Situación laboral y aporte económico de inmigrantes en el norte de Quito, Ecuador: Una primera aproximación cuantitativa para dialogar sobre política pública’ (Quito: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES-ILDIS), 2019), pp. 14–15.

63 Daniel Regalado, ‘Ecuador tramita 50.000 visas de trabajo para Venezolanos’, cited by Ecuador Chequea, 24 Aug. 2018, available at www.ecuadorchequea.com/2018/08/24/venezolanos-trabajo-ecuador-migrantes-empleo/, last Access 20 March 2020; ‘Venezolanos en Ecuador: ¡Es muy duro saber que estamos solos y esclavizados!’, Aleteia, 19 Aug. 2018.

64 UNHCR, ‘ACNUR aumenta su respuesta tras la declaratoria de emergencia en Ecuador’, 10 Aug. 2018, available at www.acnur.org/noticias/briefing/2018/8/5b6e24b34/acnur-aumenta-su-respuesta-tras-la-declaratoria-de-emergencia-en-ecuador.html, last access 20 March 2020; Ruíz, Martha Cecilia, ‘Reinforcing National Borders in the Context of Regional Integration: Female Migration and Sexuality in the Andean Subregion’, Revista Social, 64 (April 2018), pp. 42–54Google Scholar.

65 See, for example, ‘Cerca de 300 extranjeros son atendidos a diario en la zona norte’, El Norte, 13 Feb. 2019, available at www.elnorte.ec/imbabura/cerca-de-300-extranjeros-son-atendidos-a-diario-en-la-zona-DJ319533, last access 20 March 2020.

66 On the general health situation in Venezuela, see IACHR, ‘Democratic Institutions, the Rule of Law and Human Rights in Venezuela: Country Report 2017’, OEA/Ser.L/V/II. Doc.209/17, 31 Dec. 2017, pp. 228–34. On the impact of this situation in the region, see UNHCR, ‘Venezuela Situation’; Daniels, Joe Parkin, ‘Venezuela in Crisis’, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 19: 1 (2019), p. 257CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Tenesaca, Bolívar Urquizo and Allaica, Juan Carlos Muyulema, ‘Inmigración y Estado de bienestar. Una aproximación al caso ecuatoriano’, Revista Dilemas Contemporáneos: Educación, Política y Valores, 6: 2 (2019)Google Scholar, article no. 43.

68 Interview with Giovanna Tipán Barrera, 19 April 2018.

69 Célleri, ‘Situación laboral y aporte económico’, p. 21.

70 LOMH, Article 53(7), 23 Oct. 2018, available at www.cancilleria.gob.ec/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ley_de_movilidad_humana_oficial.pdf, last access 20 March 2020.

71 Executive Decree 446, 16 July 2018, available at www.cancilleria.gob.ec/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/decreto_ejecutivo_446.pdf, last access 20 March 2020. Earlier versions of this requirement are found in Executive Decrees 310, 378 and 446.

72 ‘Ecuador elimina seguro de salud a turistas que ingresen al territorio continental’, El Comercio, 21 Aug. 2018, available at www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/eliminacion-seguro-turistas-extranjeros-ecuador.html, last access 20 March 2020.

73 For example, in Ibarra the Cooperativa de Ahorro y Crédito Mujeres Unidas (CACMU) provides insurance for as low as US$1 (see www.cacmu.fin.ec/web/seguro-de-salud/#1530557147576-a946d959-83f7, last access 20 March 2020).

74 IOM, ‘Monitoreo de flujo humana’, p. 10.

75 Personal correspondence with authors, 22 April 2018.

76 MREMH, ‘Ecuador declara estado de emergencia al sector de Movilidad Humana en Carchi, Pichincha y El Oro, para la atención de los flujos migratorios inusuales de ciudadanos venezolanos’, 8 Aug. 2018, available at https://www.cancilleria.gob.ec/ecuador-declara-estado-de-emergencia-al-sector-de-movilidad-humana-en-carchi-pichincha-y-el-oro-para-la-atencion-de-los-flujos-migratorios-inusuales-de-ciudadanos-venezolanos/, last access 20 March 2020.

77 ‘ACNUR: 30.000 ciudadanos venezolanos’, El Comercio, 10 Aug. 2018; video interview with Santiago Chávez, El Comercio, 7 Aug. 2018.

78 ‘Corredor humanitario en Ecuador acercó a migrantes venezolanos a Perú’, El Universal, 25 Aug. 2018, available at www.eluniversal.com/internacional/18706/ecuador-abre-corredor-humanitario-para-venezolanos-que-migran-hacia-peru, last access 23 March 2020.

79 MREMH, ‘Ecuador declara estado de emergencia’, 8 Aug. 2018.

80 MREMH, ‘Folleto informativo sobre derechos, obligaciones y servicios para personas en situación de movilidad humana en las fronteras norte y sur’ (‘Information brochure on rights, obligations and services for people in situations of human mobility on the northern and southern borders’), 4 Oct. 2018, available at www.cancilleria.gob.ec/folleto-informativo-sobre-derechos-obligaciones-y-servicios-para-personas-en-situacion-de-movilidad-humana-en-las-fronteras-norte-y-sur/, last access 20 March 2020.

81 See ‘Ecuador exigirá a venezolanos presentación de pasaporte para ingresar al país’, El Universo, 16 Aug. 2018, available at www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2018/08/16/nota/6908318/ecuador-exigira-venezolanos-presentacion-pasaporte-ingresar-pais, last access 3 April 2020. This is subject to certain exemptions; ‘Se establecen cuatro excepciones para el requerimiento de pasaportes a ciudadanos venezolanos’, El Comercio, 19 Aug. 2018, available at www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/establecen-cuatro-excepciones-requerimiento-pasaportes.html, last access 23 March 2020.

82 ‘Ecuador exigirá a los venezolanos un “certificado de validez” de su cédula’, El Comercio, 24 Aug. 2018.

83 ‘José Valencia: “La regularización costará sobre los USD 4 millones”’, El Comercio, 21 Aug. 2018.

84 MREMH, ‘International Cooperation Framework for the National Response to Venezuelan People on the Move in Ecuador’, Dec. 2018, available at www.cancilleria.gob.ec/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2018/12/international_cooperation_framework.pdf, last access 23 March 2020.

85 President Lenín Moreno, via Twitter, 20 Jan. 2019, available at https://twitter.com/Lenin/status/1087051666669617153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1087206121650180097&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Factualidad.rt.com%2Factualidad%2F302746-ecuador-ibarra-hombre-apunalar-novia-embarazada, last access 23 March 2020.

86 José María León Cabrera, ‘La xenofobia en Ecuador empuja a migrantes venezolanos a salir del país’, New York Times, 1 Jan. 2019, available at www.nytimes.com/es/2019/01/28/ecuador-ibarra-venezolanos/, last access 23 March 2020.

87 ‘El lente y la pluma de migración venezolana en Ecuador’, Plan V, 14 Feb. 2019, available at www.planv.com.ec/historias/sociedad/venezolana-ibarra-la-xenofobia-real-no-nos-quieren, last access 23 March 2020.

88 ‘Requisito complicará el flujo de migrantes en Ecuador’, El Comercio, 22 Jan. 2019, available at www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/requisito-complica-flujo-migrantes-venezolanos.html, last access 23 March 2020.

89 The border has been blocked at Rumichaca, leading to increased irregular entry and little effort by state officials to stop this. It has also led to protests by migrants, who, for days on end without food or water, refuse to leave the checkpoint until they are granted entry, stating that they are seeking only transit to Peru, with no intention of remaining in Ecuador. See ‘Migrantes bloquean Rumichaca por tercera ocasión en menos de 72 horas’, La Hora, 19 Feb. 2019, available at www.lahora.com.ec/carchi/noticia/1102223546/migrantes-bloquean-rumichaca-por-tercera-ocasion-en-menos-de-72-horas-, last access 23 March 2020.