"We're very fearful this may lead to an economic and social destabilization in our state," said the governor, Suely Campos. "I'm looking after the needs of Venezuelans to the detriment of Brazilians." The tens of thousands of Venezuelans who have found refuge in Brazil in recent years are walking proof of a worsening humanitarian crisis that their government claims does not exist. They also constitute an exodus that is straining the region's largely generous and permissive immigration policies. Earlier this month, Trinidad deported more than 80 Venezuelan asylum-seekers. In Colombian and Brazilian border communities, local residents have attacked Venezuelans in camps. During the early months of this year, 5000 Venezuelans were leaving their homeland each day, according to the United Nations. At that rate, more Venezuelans are leaving home each month than the 125,000 Cuban exiles who fled their homes during the 1980 Mariel boat crisis and transformed South Florida. If the current rate remains steady, more than 1.8 million Venezuelans could leave by the end of this year, joining the estimated 1.5 million who have fled the economic crisis to rebuild their lives abroad.

Families cook and rest at a migrant shelter exclusively for indigenous migrants in Pacaraima, Brazil. Credit:New York Times As Venezuelans began resettling across Latin America in large numbers in 2015, for the most part they found open borders and paths to legal residency in neighbouring countries. But as their numbers have swelled — and as a larger share of recent migrants arrive without savings and in need of medical care — some officials in the region have begun to question the wisdom of open borders. Campos said she took the "extreme measure" of suing the federal government because the influx of Venezuelans led to a spike in crime, drove down wages for menial jobs and set off an outbreak of measles, which had been eradicated in Brazil. At least 93 people were killed during the first four months of this year, already exceeding the 83 violent deaths recorded last year, Campos said. And law enforcement officials say drug trafficking in the region has increased as destitute Venezuelans have been drafted into Brazilian smuggling networks.

Venezuelans wait to register with immigration authorities after crossing the border into Pacaraima, Brazil. Credit:New York Times The population of Boa Vista, the state capital, ballooned over the past few years as some 50,000 Venezuelans resettled here. They now make up roughly 10 per cent of the population. At first, residents responded with generosity, establishing soup kitchens and organising clothes drives. By last year however, local residents in Pacaraima, the border town, and Boa Vista, the state capital, which is 200 kilometres from the border, felt overwhelmed. "Boa Vista was transformed," said Mayor Teresa Surita. "This has started generating tremendous instability." On a recent morning, squatters who took over the Simón Bolivar plaza, one of the city's largest, prepared meals on small wood burning stoves. Some napped in hammocks while others stared blankly, having nowhere to go and nothing to do.

The mood was grim. A stomach bug had spread through the camp, leading to bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. Adding to their discomfort, neighbouring residents, in an act of defiance, had burned a row of bushes near the plaza that the Venezuelans had been using to defecate. As she watched smoke billowing across the campsite, Ana García, 56, said she could scarcely believe her new reality in Brazil. She was a homeowner who ate well and lived comfortably on a social worker's salary in the Venezuelan city of Maturín. But as her pay cheque became worthless last year because of soaring inflation, she quit her job of more than a decade, hoping to get a payout large enough to go abroad. Loading Instead, she walked away with an amount that was so little it only enabled her to buy a small bag of rice, half a chicken and a banana. As food became increasingly scarce, García set out on a nearly 960 km journey with her 18-year-old daughter, hitchhiking most of the way.

The first night she slept in the plaza, García said, she broke down in tears before crawling under a black tarp she now shares with her daughter. "I never thought we could find ourselves in this situation. We're not used to living like indigents," García said, her eyes welling. "But Venezuela is destroyed. People are dying of hunger." As public spaces became increasingly clogged with Venezuelans, the federal government in February took the unprecedented step of tasking the military with assuming control of the response to the refugee crisis. Loading "There is no historical parallel for this," Colonel Evandro Kupchinski, spokesman of the task force, said as military personnel cleaned up a stadium that had been taken over by Venezuelans, preparing to turn it into an official shelter. "We're coming up with solutions as we go."

Since February, in collaboration with the United Nations, the Brazilian army has been building temporary shelters with spacious white tents across the city. By the end of May, it hopes to have 11 shelters with a capacity for some 5500 people. Venezuelans who have been vaccinated and registered at one of the shelters may apply to be resettled in larger cities in Brazil via a military flight. But that process is off to a slow start because of funding constraints. The UN recently asked international donors to donate $US46 million to address the crisis during the remainder of this year, but so far it has secured only 6 per cent of that goal. At the General Hospital of Roraima, the director, Samir Xuad, says the daily patient population has surged to 1000 from 400 in the past couple of years. That requires working his employees so hard that some of them end up getting sick, too, said Xuad, adding that he had lost more than 20 pounds from the stress. Medical supplies as basic as syringes and gloves have run out, he said, and during particularly busy periods, patient gurneys line up in hallways.

"We try to make magic," he said. "But it's difficult." New York Times