While the U.S. government has removed Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Colombian authorities are concerned about the effects of this policy change.
Local government officials in Cartagena, the country’s fifth leading city with the highest number of Venezuelan migrants, express their concern about the Trump administration’s latest moves to cancel 83% of the international aid programs offered by the United States Agency for International Development or USAID.
This measure, which, according to David Vélez Majarres, a professional delegate for the District Office of Cartagena, threatens to eliminate human rights protection programs for the Venezuelan migrant population in the Latin American country.
“It’s critical; we are in a legal-administrative limbo,” said Manjarres. “We cannot disregard the progress we’ve made thanks to the financial and budgetary support from USAID and the American Bar Association. As a Colombian state, we obviously need the resources from a country that has been a strategic ally in our history.”
Venezuelans like Humberlis Martinez, a 20-year-old who moved to the city six years ago, remain optimistic despite the consequences of the United States’ policy changes.
“I am very grateful to everyone because they opened the doors of their homes, their places of work, their arms,” she said. “Honestly, you adapt so much to a place, you fit into so many things that [family and friends back home] even call me ‘la colombianita’, she said.
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in the United States will lose their Temporary Protected Status (TPS) between April and September 2025. With the removal of these migration benefits, a measure implemented during the current administration, the arrival of Venezuelans in Colombia is expected to continue rising, increasing pressure on resources and migration policies in the region.
