Most Latin American migrants no longer go to the United States
Can the region cope with a new wave?
Esther Hernández fled Venezuela to Colombia in 2017 with her husband, three daughters and a sewing machine. Her voice cracks as she recalls sleeping in a shelter, cooking on an open fire and at times going hungry. Her husband left for Chile in 2018, desperate for work. He eventually got a construction job in Puerto Montt, some 8,000km (5,000 miles) away. Ms Hernández built up a sewing business. Saving furiously, and with regularised legal status in Colombia, the family eventually bought land in El Zulia, a small village near the Venezuelan border. Brick by brick she built a house there. Now, after six years away, her husband is coming home at last. “I am a Zuliana now,” she smiles.
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This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “Where migrants really go”
From the February 15th 2025 edition
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