Immigration in Colombia

Immigrate means, Leaving [a person] their place of origin to settle temporarily or permanently in another country or region.

In Colombia there is an entity that allows accounting and statistics of many activities that take place in the country, this entity is the National Administrative Department of Statistics -DANE-, which is the entity responsible for planning, surveying, processing, analysis, and dissemination of official statistics of Colombia, belonging to the Executive Branch of the Colombian State, with more than 50 years of experience.

Its institutional mission is to plan, implement and evaluate rigorous processes for the production and communication of statistical information at the national level, which comply with international standards and make use of innovation and technology, which support the understanding and solution of social, economic, and environment of the country, serve as a basis for public and private decision-making and contribute to the consolidation of an equitable, productive and legal Social State of Law. (DANE.2022)

With the aim of providing access to the information derived from the different statistical operations that are carried out with strict quality procedures, the web portal www.dane.gov.co is available to you.

In the DANE portal, we can find information on the Immigration of Colombians to many countries in the world, for example, we can find the long-term indicator of the "Total number of long-term emigrants at the national level according to the country of destination (2005 - 2020) ”.

Graph No1. Total number of long-term emigrants at the national level according to country of destination (2005 - 2020)”.

It is highlighted that the main destinations of emigrants from Colombia are the United States with a value of 408,621, Spain with a value of 336,139, Ecuador with a value of 328,357 and Chile with a value of 146,244, these four countries represent 62% of the total Of the emigration destinations, there are other countries identified as Panama, Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, Canada, and Peru, the total of all the countries that include those previously exposed represent 82% of the total emigration. The rest of Colombians (18%) identify themselves as other countries.

The United States is the most attractive country to immigrate to, some of the reasons may be economic dispossession, lack of access to education and employment, violence, and other structural and personal factors that have motivated people from all over the world, but mainly from Latin American countries, to seek a new life in the United States or other countries in the region.

But unless they have support from family or friends who receive them there to start a new life, it is difficult for immigrants to start from scratch, because to work it is necessary to have the legality of a work permit, which has procedures that take time. considerable and these documents are required to be able to survive in this strange or alien country for the immigrant.

Those who can overcome this barrier stay in the country and adjust to the US culture, the others can usually return in less than a year.