Venezuela's Neighbors Can't Wait for Uncle Sam

Venezuela’s refugee crisis is metastasizing. According to the United Nations, 5,000 Venezuelans have fled to Curacao, 20,000 to Aruba, 30,000 to Brazil, 40,000 to Trinidad and Tobago, and more than 600,000 to Colombia.

In times past, the U.S. has led in responding to exoduses sparked by political or humanitarian crises. In 1980, it welcomed 125,000 Cubans fleeing in what became known as the Mariel Boatlift. Nearly two decades later, it provided respite for tens of thousands of Hondurans and Nicaraguans in the wake of Hurricane Mitch, and more than a quarter-million Salvadorans after a 2001 earthquake. Much as the region has not always welcomed some U.S. interventions — think Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989 and Central America throughout the 1980s — when crises arise, Latin American nations still look north.