The courage of Iván Duque

Venezuelan migrants on a highway in Cúcuta (Colombia), on February 2.SCHNEYDER MENDOZA / AFP

The president of Colombia, Iván Duque, made a decision of enormous importance this week that makes the South American country an example for the region and, in a broader sense, for the rest of the world.

The regularization of nearly one million undocumented Venezuelans is a courageous political measure that seeks to put an end to the precariousness of migrants, resolving their administrative situation and opening the doors of the system - public services, the labor market, etc. - to an extremely vulnerable group .

But this process, which will be applied from May through a new temporary protection statute, is also a powerful global message of welcome and an invitation to coexistence.

An exception in an international scene marked by so much xenophobia, nationalism, walls and fences.

Colombia is the country that, in recent years, has received the most Venezuelan migrants.

On the other side of the border, more than 2,200 kilometers full of informal crossings, the very serious economic and institutional crisis caused by Chavismo triggered an unprecedented exodus in Latin America.

According to United Nations estimates, around five million people left Venezuela in search of opportunities, especially after the outbreak of the 2017 protests against the government of Nicolás Maduro.

Approximately one third - 1.7 million, according to estimates by immigration authorities - settled in the neighboring country.

Of these, more than 960,000 still do not have papers.

That is, they are condemned to live on the margins of society.

Colombia has about 50 million inhabitants and, although its economic system is one of the most stable in the region, its public services are not comparable with those of more prosperous countries in the West.

With these premises it is understood that the effort of the Government, which has been asking for greater financial support from the international community for years, is enormous.

Above all, at a particularly delicate time due to the management of the humanitarian emergency of covid-19.

Undocumented migrants have gone in a few weeks from being excluded from the immunization against the coronavirus - announced by the Duke himself at Christmas - to having the right to a 10-year stay.

The turnaround is notorious and the president's announcement is, in some way, also a coup.

The regularization earned him the praise of some of the main international bodies, the United States and the EU.

Duque, head of a conservative government, has received criticism for his management on several fronts, including the hesitant application of the peace agreements with the defunct FARC, the actions of the Armed Forces or the violence in the countryside.

This measure probably responds to political calculations.

But what really matters is the decision itself and its impact on people.

A gesture of height that marks a path for other countries in the region, from Peru to Chile, Ecuador or Brazil, where hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans live;

and it exposes so many leaders of the most developed countries.

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