Every Man for Himself

Since 2015, the Venezuelan exodus put pressure on the governments of South America by overwhelming local systems and raising xenophobic stereotypes. The COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated this scenario. All these events developed in a complex political scenario for the region, and for the regional migration governance that was starting to take off since the beginning of the 21^st century. In that sense, this chapter aims to analyse the experiences of migration governance in South America, specifically the MERCOSUR Residence Agreement and the South American Conference on Migration (SACM), and their role in managing the Venezuelan migration crisis. This chapter concludes that these experiences couldn’t establish a homogeneous treatment of Venezuelan Migration, given the lack of leadership, as well as the end of the so-called pink tide of progressive governments in the region that jeopardised regional ideological convergence towards the subject. What united the left-wing governments at the beginning of the millennium was the promotion of a regional identity linked to regional mobility as well as a criticism of the more restrictive migration policies adopted in the Global North. Under those circumstances, the countries in the region applied ad hoc unilateral responses to face the crisis, some of which were violating the migrants’ fundamental rights.