Center for Effective Global Action

Between 2014 and 2020 over 1.8 million refugees fled from Venezuela to Colombia as a result ofa humanitarian crisis, many of them without a regular migratory status. We study the short- tomedium-term labor market impacts in Colombia of the Permiso Temporal de Permanenciaprogram, the largest migratory amnesty program offered to undocumented migrants in adeveloping country in modern history. The program granted regular migratory status and workpermits to nearly half a million undocumented Venezuelan migrants in Colombia in August 2018.To identify the effects of the program, we match confidential administrative data on the locationof undocumented migrants with department-monthly data from household surveys and comparelabor outcomes in departments that were granted different average time windows to register forthe amnesty online, before and after the program roll-out. We are only able to distinguish negativealbeit negligible effects of the program on the formal employment of Colombian workers. Theseeffects are predominantly concentrated in highly educated and in female workers.