From migration management to the governance of human mobility: institutional transformation and state responses to Venezuelan migration in Latin America

1 Introduction

Venezuelan mobility constitutes one of the most significant migration and displacement processes in Latin America during the 21st century. The scale of this phenomenon transformed national agendas on migration, international protection, social integration, and security. It also altered relations among states, international organizations, humanitarian organizations, and migrant populations themselves. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated that Latin America and the Caribbean were hosting approximately 6.5 million of the 7.72 million Venezuelans living outside Venezuela under the 2023–2024 Regional Response Plan (International Organization for Migration, 2024).

According to IOM data (2025), by the end of that year, the regional response had taken on a much broader institutional scope through the 2025–2026 Regional Response Plan for Refugees and Migrants, involving 17 countries and more than 200 organizations, including United Nations agencies, NGOs, academic institutions, organizations led by refugees and migrants, and international financial institutions. Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru were among the main host countries and had national coordination platforms within the R4V structure.

It is worth noting that the sheer scale of displacement does not, in and of itself, explain the diversity of state responses. For example, Colombia developed extraordinary mechanisms for regularization and temporary protection; Ecuador combined a legal framework initially geared toward human mobility with subsequent restrictions; Peru implemented regularization programs while maintaining visa requirements for Venezuelan citizens; and Chile shifted between regularization mechanisms, integration policies, and a gradual strengthening of immigration control measures.

This diversity poses an analytical problem. If the four countries faced a comparable regional phenomenon, why did they develop different institutional instruments? And, more importantly, do these responses represent different models of migration governance or merely variations on the same management policy?

The scholarly literature has made significant progress in addressing these questions. In this regard, Barbieri et al. (2020) conducted a comparative study of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, demonstrating that Venezuelan migration has led to specific policies and emerging regional coordination, but also revealing a trend toward restrictive approaches linked to security and control. For their part, Fernández-Rodríguez and Freier (2024) identify tensions between historical processes of migration liberalization and new restrictive responses to forced displacement. Similarly, Fernández-Rodríguez (2025) further demonstrates that Colombia and Peru developed divergent responses to a similar displaced population and attributes these differences to domestic and international political mechanisms.

Other studies challenge the linear interpretation of Colombian migration policy. Trompetero-Vicent and Forero (2026) show that Colombia used administrative instruments and executive decrees to regularize nearly 2 million Venezuelans, which produced relatively permissive outcomes through institutional tools typically associated with a significant concentration of executive power. The Colombian case also highlights a tension between regularization and international protection. Pelacani and Moreno (2023) argue that the development of alternative regularization mechanisms, including the Temporary Protection Permit (PPT), made it possible to respond to the scale of displacement but simultaneously contributed to displacing asylum as the primary avenue of protection for certain groups.

The aforementioned studies demonstrate that the relationship between openness, protection, regularization, and control is more complex than a binary classification allows, given that migration policy can simultaneously produce administrative inclusion and new forms of control. Regularization, for example, expands access to legal status, but it also requires identification, registration, classification, and the production of state information on migrants.

Based on this tension, this article argues that Venezuelan migration did not result in a linear transition from a traditional model of migration management to a uniform model of human mobility governance. Rather, the outcome has been a hybrid institutional reconfiguration, characterized by a variable combination of four state functions: protection, regularization, inclusion, and control.

The central argument put forward in this study is that the states analyzed have developed hybrid models of migration governance, the configuration of which depends on the specific combination of these four dimensions and on the institutional capacity to translate political decisions into effective instruments. Therefore, the research problem can be formulated as follows: How did Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile transform their migration governance models in response to Venezuelan migration, and what institutional configurations emerged from the interaction between protection, regularization, inclusion, and control?

In this study, the terms protection, regularization, inclusion, and control are not used as institutional or jurisdictional categories, nor as official designations of national migration systems. Rather, they are presented as analytical dimensions constructed to compare the function performed by policy instruments within each governance structure. Accordingly, a single instrument may contribute to more than one dimension. An administrative registration process may expand identification and access to rights while simultaneously strengthening the state’s capacity for classification and control. Similarly, a temporary permit may reduce irregularity without legally constituting a form of international protection. This distinction prevents the institutional name of a measure from being confused with the function it performs within the governance system. The coding procedure was specifically designed to assign each dimension according to observable criteria rather than according to the terminology used by the public authority.

Consequently, the general objective is to conduct a comparative analysis of the transformation of the migration governance models implemented by Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile in response to Venezuelan migration, by identifying the relationships between protection, regularization, social inclusion, and migration control. The specific objectives are: 1. To identify the main regulatory and institutional transformations that have taken place in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile in response to Venezuelan migration; 2. To compare state responses based on the dimensions of protection, regularization, inclusion, and control; 3. To identify patterns of convergence and divergence among the four cases; and 4. To develop a distinct typology of migration governance models applicable to the comparative analysis of Latin American responses to Venezuelan displacement.

At this point, it is necessary to establish both the regional context and the role of international actors. Venezuelan mobility must be situated within a regional response framework that became consolidated beginning in 2018. In this context, the Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (R4V), co-led by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), brings together governments, United Nations agencies, nongovernmental organizations, civil society, refugee- and migrant-led organizations, academia, and international financial institutions. Under the 2025–2026 Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP), 17 countries and 230 partners participate, with national platforms in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. The IOM also participates in the technical coordination of the Quito Process, a regional mechanism aimed at sharing practices and addressing institutional challenges associated with Venezuelan mobility (International Organization for Migration, 2025).

This institutional framework does not replace state authority. On the contrary, states retain legal competencies over admission, residence, regularization, nationality, and expulsion, while international actors contribute coordination, information, technical assistance, protection, financing, and operational capacity. Thus, the resulting governance structure is multilevel, with national decisions developing within a regional space in which norms, resources, and capacities are shared unevenly.

Finally, it should be noted that the article’s main contribution lies precisely in this typology. Rather than classifying countries exclusively as open or restrictive, the study proposes identifying hybrid architectures based on the relative intensity of four governance functions.

2 Theoretical framework and state of the art

2.1 State of the art: toward a comparative agenda

The literature review can be organized into four main strands: 1. Legal studies on rights, asylum, and regularization, whose primary contribution lies in the analysis of laws and rights, but which offer limited institutional comparison; 2. Research on national migration policies, which examines domestic measures and is predominantly descriptive; 3. Governance studies of state responses, which analyze regional coordination while paying less attention to national differences; and 4. Securitization studies, which examine control and restrictions but often underestimate inclusion mechanisms.

Subsequent comparative studies on Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru have deepened the analysis and demonstrated that the adoption of apparently contradictory policies can be explained by institutional and historical factors. Trompetero-Vicent and Forero (2026) point out that Colombia used executive and administrative instruments to regularize the status of approximately two million Venezuelans, generating an interesting tension between the concentration of authority and relatively inclusive outcomes.

Similarly, Fernández-Rodríguez demonstrates that Colombia and Peru, despite sharing similar structural conditions, developed divergent responses: Colombia established the Temporary Protection Statute in 2021, whereas Peru introduced visa restrictions in 2019. Consequently, the gap addressed by this article lies precisely in the fact that, although the literature has explained national migration policies and documented regional responses, it is necessary to integrate both dimensions in order to identify the different institutional models of governance generated by the Venezuelan crisis.

Furthermore, the critical review presented by Fernández-Rodríguez and Freier (2024) demonstrates that the field has advanced considerably; however, the tension between national studies and comparative analyses remains evident. Therefore, this article seeks to advance this intersection—not merely by asserting that different policies exist, but by proposing an analytical tool for comparing the institutional architectures that produce these differences.

2.2 From migration management to governance

Migration management and migration governance are related but not equivalent concepts. The former is traditionally linked to the state’s administrative capacity to regulate entries, exits, stays, documentation, and regularization procedures. Its primary unit of reference is the public administration.

In this article, migration management refers to the set of capacities, procedures, and instruments through which authorities regulate the entry, stay, documentation, regularization, and departure of foreign nationals. In this regard, migration governance has a broader scope, as it encompasses the relationships among state authorities, bureaucracies, subnational governments, international and humanitarian organizations, civil society, and migrant actors. This distinction is consistent with the literature on global governance, which understands migration as an institutionally fragmented domain in which states retain decisive powers but operate within multilevel networks and arrangements (Betts, 2011; Geddes, 2021).

In turn, the article introduces a methodological distinction: migration management makes it possible to observe specific instruments, whereas governance enables an analysis of how those instruments are coordinated, implemented, and modified within an institutional structure. Accordingly, the object of comparison is not an isolated policy, but rather the functional configuration produced by a set of instruments during the 2015–2025 period.

Governance, on the other hand, broadens the analytical framework in which public decisions are made through interactions between state and non-state actors, as well as among different territorial levels. In the context of migration, this perspective is particularly relevant because national policies interact with international norms, regional agreements, local governments, humanitarian agencies, and civil society organizations.

Currently, the Venezuelan experience clearly illustrates this transformation in the Latin American region. The R4V Platform serves as a regional coordination framework involving international organizations, governments, NGOs, academic institutions, and organizations led by migrants and refugees. For the 2025–2026 period, the IOM reported 230 partners within the Regional Response Plan and a national and subregional structure deployed in the affected countries (International Organization for Migration, 2025).

Migration governance must therefore be understood as a multilevel process, in which the state continues to play a central role, particularly because it retains legal authority over admission, residency, nationality, regularization, and expulsion. Nevertheless, the implementation of migration policies takes place within broader institutional networks. This conceptual shift allows us to study Venezuelan migration both as a problem of managing migration flows and as a process of reconfiguring state capacities.

2.3 Migration governance, human rights, and international protection

Latin America has a relatively well-developed legal tradition regarding the protection of migrants and refugees. However, the existence of protective legal norms does not ensure their effective implementation, as tensions can be identified between regional normative advances and the persistence of restrictive mechanisms and administrative obstacles. This discrepancy between the norm and its implementation is fundamental to the study of Venezuelan migration, and it is here that the second dimension of the theoretical framework (the relationship between migration and human rights) comes into play.

In this context, Ecuador represents a particularly relevant case because the 2017 Organic Law on Human Mobility (LOMH) established a legal framework focused on both human mobility and the recognition of rights (National Assembly of Ecuador, 2017). Despite this, Ecuador’s migration policy subsequently underwent changes linked to the increase in Venezuelan migration flows and concerns about strict migration controls. As Barros-Bravo (2025) notes, there is a clear need to examine the responses of Colombia and Ecuador together, as both countries developed specific policies in response to the Venezuelan migration phenomenon, albeit with significant differences in their instruments and approaches. Therefore, the tension between rights and control should not be interpreted as an absolute contradiction; rather, it should be understood that policies can simultaneously incorporate both protective and regulatory mechanisms.

With regard to the protection dimension, it is necessary to distinguish between administrative protection and international protection. The former encompasses state instruments that reduce irregularity, facilitate access to documentation, or enable access to certain rights. The latter derives from the specific obligations established under international refugee law and national asylum systems. Therefore, the existence of a temporary permit or an extraordinary regularization mechanism does not, in itself, allow one to infer that the state has expanded access to asylum.

This distinction is particularly relevant in the Venezuelan case. In Colombia, for example, the Temporary Protection Statute (ETP) for Venezuelan migrants expanded access to temporary residence, employment, and services, but it did not legally replace the individual procedure for recognition of refugee status. The literature reviewed has also indicated that the expansion of alternative regularization mechanisms may relatively displace asylum as a protection pathway for certain groups (Pelacani and Moreno, 2023). In Ecuador, the legal framework provides important protection standards, although the asylum system faces capacity and management challenges (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2025). Accordingly, in this study, protection is coded using differentiated indicators: access to asylum and recognition of international protection needs, on the one hand, and administrative protection mechanisms, on the other.

2.4 Securitization and migration governance

Securitization constitutes a third fundamental dimension of this research, since migration can be politically framed as an issue related to national security, public order, crime, or territorial control. In the words of Barbieri et al. (2020), a trend toward the strengthening of security and control policies can be observed in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru as migratory pressure increased.

However, securitization should not be understood as a factor that automatically excludes protection policies; on the contrary, these measures can coexist, as the Latin American experience demonstrates that the state itself has the capacity to expand regularization mechanisms, strengthen border controls, establish identification procedures, facilitate access to services, and increase documentation requirements.

Indeed, there are differences between Colombia and Peru. While Colombia developed a large-scale temporary protection mechanism, Peru implemented more restrictive policies during certain periods (Fernández-Rodríguez, 2025); therefore, the explanation cannot be limited to the magnitude of the migratory flow, but must also take into account national institutions, political coalitions, bureaucracies, and international relations.

2.5 The bureaucracy as an actor in migration policy

An important contribution of recent literature is to shift the analysis from presidents and ministers to the bureaucracies responsible for implementing policies. Indeed, the study by Fernández-Rodríguez and Célleri (2024) shows that bureaucracies can play a decisive role in shaping migration policy paradigms in Colombia and Ecuador.

This allows for the introduction of an institutional dimension into this comparative analysis, in which the same policy orientation can produce different results depending on administrative capacity, bureaucratic autonomy, inter-institutional coordination, budgetary availability, technological infrastructure, administrative procedures, and the relationship between national bureaucracies and local governments. Therefore, migration governance is achieved through laws and procedures.

2.6 Regularization as a governance mechanism

Regularization constitutes one of the main tools and best practices of public policy employed in response to Venezuelan migration. In this regard, Colombia represents the most advanced case, having created (through Decree 216 of 2021) the Temporary Protection Statute for Venezuelan Migrants, through which a registry of the Venezuelan population was established, leading to the subsequent issuance of the PPT. This measure established a 10-year stay for its beneficiaries (Trompetero-Vicent and Forero, 2026).

In this sense, regularization fulfills at least four functions: 1. It legally recognizes the presence of the migrant population; 2. It facilitates access to services; 3. It enables entry into the formal labor market; and 4. It increases the state’s capacity for identification and registration. Therefore, regularization should not be analyzed exclusively as an inclusion policy, but also as a technology applied to governance.

It should be noted that the expansion of regularization mechanisms may have an unintended effect: a decrease in the use of international protection mechanisms, even among individuals with specific needs for international protection (Pelacani and Moreno, 2023).

3 Methodology

3.1 Approach

The research adopts a qualitative, comparative, and interpretive approach based on documentary analysis. The multiple-case comparison method is used to identify patterns of similarity and difference among Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile.

The period of analysis spans 2015–2025. This timeframe allows for an examination of both the initial expansion phase of Venezuelan migration and the subsequent institutionalization of mechanisms for regularization, protection, and control in the countries studied.

3.2 Case selection

The four countries were selected through a purposive sampling strategy based on theoretical relevance and aimed at maximizing analytical variation within the Andean-Pacific corridor of Venezuelan mobility. The cases (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile) were selected because they simultaneously meet the following conditions: 1. A significant presence of the Venezuelan population; 2. Participation in the regional response; 3. The development of specific migration policy instruments; 4. The existence of relevant institutional differences; and 5. The availability of sufficient normative and academic documentation to reconstruct the 2015–2025 trajectory. The selection logic corresponds to a structured and focused comparison in which the cases are examined using the same questions and analytical dimensions (George and Bennett, 2005).

Brazil constitutes a substantively important regional case. However, the decision to exclude it from this study is based on the delimited comparative scope, as the research focuses on four countries along the Andean-Pacific axis and seeks to maintain a comparable institutional framework concerning mobility trajectories toward Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile. Brazil also presents a distinct institutional configuration associated with its federal structure, its position within MERCOSUR, and its specific reception and regularization instruments. Including Brazil would have required the introduction of a second comparative logic and an expansion of the corpus. This delimitation therefore constitutes a scope decision rather than a claim that the Brazilian case is irrelevant.

3.3 Documentary corpus

The research adopts a comparative qualitative design based on documentary analysis and the structured comparison of four cases. Documentary analysis is used as a systematic strategy for identifying, selecting, reading, coding, and triangulating normative, institutional, and academic documents (Bowen, 2009). The comparison is structured around the same analytical questions for each country, following the principle of structured and focused comparison (George and Bennett, 2005).

The period for document retrieval and analysis is established as January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2025. The unit of analysis is the migration policy instrument or provision. The corpus consists of legislation, decrees, administrative resolutions, national policies, institutional documents, scholarly articles, reports by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and R4V documents, provided that the instrument produces an observable function in at least one of the four analytical dimensions.

The corpus consisted of a review of 39 documents, distributed among 11 normative documents, 7 institutional documents, 4 reports by international organizations, and 17 academic articles. Documents were retrieved through Scopus, Web of Science, Latindex, Google Scholar, official websites of national governments, UNHCR, IOM, R4V, and academic repositories. The searches combined terms related to Venezuelan migration, regularization, refugee status, asylum, temporary protection, integration, visas, border control, and migration policies.

The inclusion criteria were established according to the following parameters: 1. Documents published or in force between 2015 and 2025; 2. A direct relationship with the Venezuelan population or with national instruments applied to its mobility; 3. Relevance to at least one analytical dimension; 4. Availability of the complete text; and 5. Verifiable identification of the issuing authority or academic source. The exclusion criteria included the following elements: 1. Duplicate documents; 2. Documents containing insufficient information to identify the instrument or its scope; 3. Exclusively journalistic materials that did not provide additional evidence; and 4. Documents published after December 31, 2025, unless they were used exclusively for contextualization and identified as such.

3.4 Analytical matrix

The research operationalizes the four dimensions shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Analytical matrix.

Source: Prepared by the author based on a review of the literature.

3.5 Analysis procedure

The analysis followed four phases:

• Phase 1. Document identification: Relevant regulatory instruments and scientific studies were identified.
• Phase 2. Coding: Each instrument was coded according to the four dimensions (protection, regularization, inclusion, and control).
• Phase 3. Comparison: The four countries (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile) were compared across each dimension.
• Phase 4. Typology: Recurring configurations were identified, and a typology of models was developed. To avoid arbitrary classifications, an ordinal intensity scale was used, in which each dimension is scored based on observable indicators and predefined rules. Each country’s score is obtained through the qualitative aggregation of coded instruments within the period, considering the scope, coverage, and consistency of the measure, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Classification code and scale.

Source: Author’s own elaboration based on the literature review.

Coding rules by dimension: Protection: asylum/recognition procedures, non-refoulement guarantees, temporary protection, and administrative protection mechanisms. Regularization: permits, residency, amnesties, extraordinary legal statuses, and documentation procedures. Inclusion: formal access to employment, education, healthcare, social protection, and services. Control: visas, border controls, documentary requirements, sanctions, expulsions, and identification mechanisms.

When an instrument affects more than one dimension, it is coded under all dimensions whose function is supported by documentary evidence, without counting the same document more than once as independent evidence. The established score is not intended to generate a statistical index, but rather to facilitate qualitative comparison.

4 Results

4.1 Colombia: regularization as a framework for protection and control

Colombia represents the principal case of reception and regularization of the Venezuelan population within the set of cases analyzed. The response involved successive regularization instruments and culminated in the Temporary Protection Permit (PPT) for Venezuelan migrants (Decree 216 of 2021). The national migration authority and the institutions responsible for border management and social protection assumed a central role. The analysis must distinguish the PPT from international protection and demonstrate how registration, identification, and access to services can simultaneously function as mechanisms of inclusion and as means of strengthening state capacities.

The country received a significant proportion of Venezuelan displacement due to its geographic proximity, historical ties, and the length of the shared border; as a result, Colombia represents the case of the greatest institutional transformation.

The response evolved from successive regularization mechanisms toward the Temporary Protection Statute. Through Decree 216 of 2021, an institutional framework was established comprising the Single Registry of Venezuelan Migrants and the PPT (Trompetero-Vicent and Forero, 2026). The Colombian case exhibits a high degree of regularization and protection, but also a significant component of control.

The analysis confirms that Colombia cannot be classified simply as having an “open policy,” since its framework combines regularization, protection, and inclusion with registration and control mechanisms. This finding aligns with Trompetero-Vicent and Forero (2026), who show that the use of executive instruments made it possible to regularize nearly 2 million Venezuelans.

Similarly, it aligns with Pelacani and Moreno (2023), who warn of the relative displacement of asylum mechanisms. Thus, the main characteristic of Colombia’s approach is rooted in the convergence of mass regularization and the strengthening of administrative capacity.

4.2 Ecuador: from a rights-based paradigm toward a hybrid framework

Ecuador combines a constitutional and legal framework oriented toward the recognition of human mobility with subsequent shifts toward greater controls on entry and stay. The 2017 Organic Law on Human Mobility constitutes the normative starting point; subsequently, extraordinary regularization processes were developed. In 2024, the government initiated a new process for Venezuelan nationals who had obtained certificates of stay but had not completed the process of obtaining their visas. The analysis should present this trajectory as a sequence of normative openness, restrictions, and regularization, and should avoid characterizing it as a simple replacement of one model by another.

Ecuador’s institutional trajectory differs from that of Colombia. In this regard, Ecuador’s 2017 LOMH introduced a legal framework based on the recognition of rights and on human mobility as a cross-cutting category. However, the increase in Venezuelan migration led to the gradual incorporation of control mechanisms. For this reason, the trajectory can be divided into three main phases: 2017–2018: predominance of a rights-based approach; 2019–2020: introduction of entry restrictions and requirements; and 2021–2025: a combination of regularization, protection, and control.

Comparative evidence shows that Ecuador shifted from a relatively inclusive policy toward more restrictive mechanisms during the surge in Venezuelan mobility. Barbieri et al. (2020) identified this transformation among the countries of the South American Pacific region. For his part, Guachamboza (2026) also confirms the shift from an initial humanitarian approach toward restrictive measures during the 2017–2022 period. Therefore, Ecuador exhibits a rights-based-control framework, characterized by the coexistence of formally recognized rights with administrative control instruments.

4.3 Peru: regularization under conditions of control

Perú constitutes a useful case for examining the separation between the governance of entry and the governance of stay. The country implemented regularization mechanisms and temporary permits for foreign nationals already present in its territory, while maintaining differentiated entry requirements for Venezuelan citizens. The National Superintendence of Migration is a central institutional actor.

During the first phase of the Venezuelan migration, Peru developed mechanisms for regularization and temporary permits. Supreme Decree 010-2020-IN and subsequent regulations allowed for the regularization of undocumented foreign nationals. For its part, the National Superintendency of Migration states that these mechanisms allow individuals to obtain a Temporary Residence Permit valid for 2 years under certain conditions (National Superintendency of Migration of Peru, 2023a).

In 2023, a new procedure for Temporary Residence Permits was also established for foreign nationals in an irregular situation (National Superintendency of Migration of Peru, 2023b). However, these policies coexisted with entry control mechanisms; thus, Superintendency Resolution 0121-2024-MIGRACIONES established specific passport and visa requirements for Venezuelan citizens entering Peruvian territory, which included various immigration categories (National Superintendency of Migration of Peru, 2024). For this reason, the Peruvian situation is analytically significant because it demonstrates that both regularization and restriction can form part of the same institutional framework. Consequently, the Peruvian government can be characterized as a “regularization-control” model, implying that Peru presents a particularly significant combination of policies.

4.4 Chile: strengthening control and selective regularization

Chile exhibits a trajectory characterized by regularization mechanisms and, in parallel, a gradual strengthening of migration controls. In this regard, the response to Venezuelan mobility must be analyzed alongside the institutionalization of entry requirements, residency instruments, and integration measures. This case is relevant because it makes it possible to observe a configuration in which selective regularization does not eliminate the control component.

Chile is the fourth case and presents a trajectory marked by the progressive strengthening of immigration control mechanisms. It should be noted that the country received a significant Venezuelan population and developed regularization mechanisms at different points during the crisis. However, the institutional approach became progressively more selective.

In this regard, the literature review has identified this trend, and, based on Finn and Umpierrez (2020) analysis, it can be observed that Chile’s 2018 immigration policy demonstrated how a discourse of openness could coexist with restrictive measures. Thus, the Chilean case presents a combination of limited regularization; the existence of integration mechanisms, but also border controls, documentation requirements, and security policies.

Compared to Colombia, the scope of mass regularization is smaller, while the control component is more intense. Therefore, the Chilean case can be classified as a control-regulation model.

In summary, Table 3 is presented below, showing the scale of each of the dimensions studied:

Table 3. Comparative matrix of migration governance.

Source: Author’s own work based on a literature review.

4.5 Cross-country comparison

A comparison of the four countries under study reveals four patterns, namely: in “Pattern 1,” all states expanded their administrative capacity, as Venezuelan migration forced them to create or modify procedures for registration, identification, documentation, regularization, and border control. In this scenario, the migration crisis thus acted as a catalyst for rebuilding state capacities.

With regard to “Pattern 2,” it became evident that regularization became a central tool, as all four countries employed regularization mechanisms at different times; thus, regularization ceased to be an exceptional policy and became a structural component of migration governance, with the main difference lying in its scope. Colombia presents the largest-scale model. Peru also developed significant instruments, although these were accompanied by stricter entry restrictions. Ecuador combined regularization with control mechanisms. And Chile developed more selective regularization measures.

“Pattern 3” demonstrated that protection does not always take the form of asylum. This pattern is quite significant because it allows for a distinction between administrative protection and international protection. For example, Colombia shows a strong expansion of administrative protection but faces challenges regarding international protection. Pelacani and Moreno (2023) specifically identify the relative decline of asylum as a means of protection. This distinction is fundamental because a policy can be inclusive from an administrative standpoint without fully addressing international protection needs.

Finally, “Pattern 4” made it possible to understand that control does not disappear with regularization. This comparative evidence allows us to draw a central conclusion: regularization transforms migration control more than it eliminates it, since the state exercises control through documentation, registration, permits, databases, administrative requirements, and status classification. Therefore, protection and control must be analyzed as simultaneous dimensions.

4.6 A custom typology of migration governance models

Based on the evidence found in the analysis of the case studies (Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Chile), the following models of migration governance are proposed:

4.6.1 Model I: protection-regulation governance

Characteristics:

• High level of regularization.
• High protection.
• High inclusion.
• Moderate control.
• Paradigmatic case: Colombia.

This model uses regularization as a central tool to integrate the displaced population and reduce irregularity.

4.6.2 Model II: rights-based governance and control

Characteristics:

• High level of regulatory protection.
• Significant regularization.
• Intermediate inclusion.
• Increasing controls.
• Paradigmatic case: Ecuador.

The defining characteristic is the gap between the rights-based regulatory framework and the subsequent evolution of control policies.

4.6.3 Model III. Regularization-control governance

Characteristics:

• Significant regularization.
• High level of control.
• Intermediate protection.
• Limited inclusion.
• Paradigmatic case: Peru.

The state allows for the regularization of those already within the territory, but simultaneously tightens entry mechanisms.

4.6.4 Model IV. Control-regulation governance

Characteristics:

• High level of control.
• Selective regularization.
• Intermediate protection.
• Limited or conditional inclusion.
• Paradigmatic case: Chile.

Policy prioritizes the state’s capacity to regulate migration flows and establish conditions for entry and residence.

The typology described in this study does not aim to definitively categorize countries, but rather seeks to identify the predominant institutional configurations during the period under study.

5 Discussion

The results call into question the interpretation that Latin American migration policy can be divided into “open” and “restrictive” countries, as the evidence gathered suggests that this classification is insufficient. Colombia is the most obvious example. The country developed one of the most comprehensive regularization policies in the region, but did so through the use of centralized administrative instruments. Trompetero-Vicent and Forero (2026) demonstrate that instruments associated with the concentration of executive power produced relatively permissive outcomes regarding Venezuelan displacement. For this reason, an important conclusion stands out: the democratic or centralized nature of an instrument does not, in and of itself, determine its migration orientation.

In this regard, the decisive factor lies in the interaction between institutional capacities, political interests, bureaucracies, and international conditions. A comparison of Colombia and Peru reveals that both countries faced similar international, economic, and migratory pressures but adopted divergent policies (Fernández-Rodríguez, 2025). This allows us to interpret migration governance as the result of an interaction between migratory pressure, national institutions, bureaucracies, political coalitions, and international norms.

The typology proposed in this article adds an additional dimension: the functional configuration of the policy, since it is not enough to know whether a state is liberal or restrictive. It is necessary to determine which functions it combines and to identify whether a policy is protective and controlling, regularizing and securitizing, inclusive and selective, or humanitarian and bureaucratically centralized. This characteristic explains why traditional categories produce ambiguous results.

Regularization represents the main paradox identified. From a rights-based perspective, regularization reduces legal vulnerability; from a state perspective, regularization increases the capacity for identification and classification; and from a governance perspective, both functions can coexist. Therefore, regularization must be understood as an ambivalent instrument of governance.

This conclusion is particularly evident in Colombia, where the PPT provides access to regular immigration status, but its operation depends on state identification and registration systems. At the same time, the model may compete with asylum mechanisms (Pelacani and Moreno, 2023). Thus, this phenomenon requires moving beyond an exclusively normative interpretation of regularization.

The second problematic outcome arises from restrictive policies through which a state introduces visa requirements or increases border controls, which can reduce certain forms of regular migration without necessarily eliminating mobility.

Under these circumstances, the Peruvian case is illustrative because the country has maintained internal regularization mechanisms while requiring visas for certain forms of entry by Venezuelan citizens (National Superintendency of Migration of Peru, 2024), creating a separation between the governance of entry and the governance of stay. Consequently, a state can restrict the former and regularize the latter. The result is that the categories “openness” and “closure” prove insufficient to describe the policy.

The results also show that state capacity is a cross-cutting variable, given that a mass regularization policy requires the presence and availability of specialized bureaucracies, information systems, digital infrastructure, inter-institutional coordination, financial resources, and territorial presence.

Consequently, migration governance cannot be analyzed solely as a political decision but must be studied as the institutional capacity of states to implement complex decisions. In this regard, the literature on the bureaucracies of Colombia and Ecuador reinforces this interpretation, with authors such as Fernández-Rodríguez and Célleri (2024) demonstrating that both officials and bureaucratic structures can influence the shaping of migration policy paradigms.

The fourth element pertains to regional governance. Within this framework, states do not manage the Venezuelan displacement individually; such is the case with the R4V platform, a forum through which national, subregional, and regional responses have been coordinated. During the 2025–2026 period, the structure included national platforms in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile (International Organization for Migration, 2025).

This situation demonstrates that contemporary migration governance has a multilevel architecture, where the unit of analysis should therefore not be limited to the state, since the phenomenon can be understood through the relationship between the national government, local governments, international organizations, civil society, and migrant organizations. This network alters the traditional conception of migration sovereignty; while the state retains legal authority over admission and residency, it shares responsibilities for assistance, integration, information, and protection.

The main theoretical contribution of this article is the conceptualization of migration governance as a hybrid functional architecture. This proposal differs from binary classifications because it allows for the simultaneous identification of four dimensions that structure migration governance: 1. protection; 2. regularization; 3. inclusion; and 4. control. This proposal enables the study of longitudinal changes to understand that a country can shift, for example, from protection to control, or from control to regularization, without completely altering its legal framework.

From a methodological standpoint, the article also provides a comparative tool through its typology of migration governance models, as it allows for the comparison of countries with different legal systems without assuming that a given policy automatically carries the same institutional significance. For example, a visa can be an instrument of control; a temporary permit can be a form of regularization; registration can be both inclusion and control; and a refugee policy can represent protection, but not necessarily integration. The proposed typology thus avoids confusing instruments with outcomes.

This point is methodologically relevant because much research on Venezuelan migration focuses on describing laws, decrees, or programs. The present proposal shifts the analysis toward the function that each instrument fulfills within an institutional architecture.

6 Conclusion

Venezuelan migration has brought about a significant transformation of migration governance in Latin America. In countries such as Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile, there is a lack of uniform policies, as each state has combined mechanisms of protection, regularization, inclusion, and control in different ways, depending on the specific circumstances of each country. Consequently, the comparative analysis allows us to reject the implicit hypothesis of a linear transition from migration management toward uniform regional governance.

First, Colombia represents the protection-regulation model, whose main characteristic is the use of extraordinary regularization mechanisms as a tool for integration and strengthening administrative capacity. Second, Ecuador represents the rights-based-control model, whose main tension lies in the coexistence of a legal framework for human mobility with subsequent measures aimed at controlling migration flows. Third, Peru represents the regularization-control model, where its experience shows that the regularization of people already present in the territory can coexist with significant restrictions on entry. Fourth, Chile represents the control-regulation model, characterized by a greater emphasis on mechanisms for regulating entry and stay, along with selective regularization instruments.

This comparison leads to a first conclusion: protection and control are not necessarily opposite ends of the same spectrum, but can operate simultaneously. In this regard, regularization is the clearest example, as it reduces irregular status and expands rights, while also strengthening the state’s capacity to identify, classify, and manage the migrant population.

This ambivalence leads to a second conclusion: migration policies must be evaluated both for their stated objectives and for the institutional functions they actually produce. In this regard, a policy can be discursively humanitarian and administratively restrictive, and it can also use centralized instruments to produce inclusive outcomes. The analysis of Colombia demonstrates precisely this possibility.

The third conclusion concerns state capacity: more complex migration responses require bureaucracies capable of transforming political decisions into effective procedures. Migration governance therefore depends on the interaction between political will, administrative capacity, and institutional coordination.

For its part, a fourth conclusion pertains to the regional dimension, where the presence of the R4V platform and numerous humanitarian, social, and academic actors demonstrates that the governance of Venezuelan displacement operates through multilevel structures. The state maintains a central position, but it is no longer the primary and sole actor capable of providing responses.

Finally, the proposed typology allows us to move from a descriptive analysis toward a comparative analytical framework. The four models (protection-regulation, rights-based-control, regularization-control, and control-regulation) allow us to identify different configurations and responses within the same regional transformation. Thus, the main implication for public policy is to overcome the dichotomy between openness and closure, recognizing that sustainable migration governance requires coordinating regularization, international protection, socioeconomic inclusion, and proportional control. And where state effectiveness is not measured exclusively by the ability to prevent entries or increase deportations, but rather by the ability to facilitate regular mobility, protect migrants’ rights, reduce vulnerabilities, and sustain institutional mechanisms for integration.

Ultimately, Venezuelan migration should not be viewed solely as a humanitarian crisis. It must also be studied as a phenomenon transforming the Latin American state, in which the responses developed over the past decade demonstrate how public institutions have had to adapt their capacities, share functions with non-state actors, and redefine the boundaries between protection, inclusion, and control. Therefore, the governance of human mobility emerges as a field under construction whose defining feature is not the disappearance of the state, but its transformation.

Generative AI statement

The author(s) declared that Generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.

Any alternative text (alt text) provided alongside figures in this article has been generated by Frontiers with the support of artificial intelligence and reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, including review by the authors wherever possible. If you identify any issues, please contact us.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Footnotes

Edited by: Stylianos Ioannis Tzagkarakis, Hellenic Open University, Greece

Reviewed by: Genny Torcoroma Navarro Claro, Francisco de Paula University Santander Ocaña, Colombia

Valentina Benincasa, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain