Venezuelans can now enter the country by simply presenting their citizenship card

The director of Migration Colombia, Fernando García, announced on Friday that, as of this very day, it is enough for Venezuelan citizens to present the citizenship card of their country to cross the border with Colombia and travel through border municipalities.

“People who pass with a passport or ID or with the TMF, the border mobility card, will be able to cross the border. The idea is to expand the number of people who have the possibility of passing through the border point,” García said on Friday. , during a press conference from the Simón Bolívar International Bridge, in the Colombian-Venezuelan border.

Before the closure of the border, Venezuelans could move freely, but the authorities asked for the residence permit, the mobility card and the passport. Now, transiting with the identity card will be enough, as well as circulating through the city of Cúcuta. This does not give them permission to work, only to move around.

The change, he clarified, is made “with the aim of facilitating the mobilization of the population in both directions. From Colombia to Venezuela and in the opposite direction. The intention is to gradually promote measures that definitely end up integrating the next border region, somehow, with expectation in front of this subject”.

Likewise, the director announced an upcoming meeting on October 13 with Venezuelan authorities to advance in the progressive reopening and seek reciprocity with this measure; that is, to facilitate the transit of Colombians to Venezuela.

García referred to the so-called ‘Border Tables for Life’, created to link the population “to the different social actors, from Cúcuta and the border region to a dialogue.

“We do this with the aim of collecting both the problem and the solution proposals, which are not necessarily found in the center of Bogotá, without counting on the regions, in order to present it as an input for the development plan that the national government will advance. on the issue of migration,” added the director.

In this first official visit, as director of the immigration authority, García spoke with passers-by and learned first-hand about the reality of immigration.

On September 26, the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, and representatives of the Government of Nicolás Maduro, attended the official reopening of the borderseven years after the decision of the government of the Venezuelan president to close the border between the two neighboring nations.

[Con la colaboración de Karen Sánchez, de la VOA, desde Bogotá]

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