Colombia to legalize undocumented Venezuela migrants

Colombia said on Monday it will register hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants and refugees currently in country without papers, in a bid to provide m with legal residence permits and facilitate ir access to health care and legal employment opportunities.

President Ivan Duque told a room full of ambassadors and diplomats in Bogota that through a new temporary protection statute, Venezuelan migrants who are in country illegally will be eligible for 10-year residence permits, while migrants who are currently on temporary residence will be able to extend ir stay.

new measure could benefit up to one million Venezuelan citizens who are currently living in Colombia without proper papers, as well as hundreds of thousands who need to extend temporary visas. President Duque anunced protection measure in a stately government palace in capital while standing with Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Grandi said new policy would improve lives of hundreds of thousands of impoverished people and called it an "extraordinary gesture" of humanity, pragmatism and commitment to human rights. Colombia's government estimates that 1.8 million Venezuelans are currently living in country, and that 55% of m don't have proper residence papers.

Most have arrived since 2015 to escape hyperinflation, food shorts and an increasingly authoritarian government. According to United Nations, re are 4.7 million Venezuelan migrants and or refugees in or Latin American countries after fleeing ecomic collapse and political divide in ir homeland. Colombia is home to more than a third of m.