Tense Calm at Colombia-Venezuela Border Amid Uncertainty (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: A heavy, reinforced military presence on the Colombian side of the Colombia-Venezuela border. And you can see three armored vehicles here, a fourth over there. But it's not just military that has set up here on this side of the border, but also we're told humanitarian aid in case anything happens with regards to a rush of individuals coming here into Colombia. Now let me set the stage a bit for you. This is the border crossing where we are, Cucuta, Colombia. On the other side, you enter Venezuela. And you can see on a Sunday morning, traffic is moving rather calmly back and forth. This is pretty typical if you talk to locals. The only difference is the military presence and the press. And you've got many individuals from media across Latin America who have set up here to get a sense of what could happen next. So the folks here who have made their lives in Cucuta, for example, they were out in the streets late into the night. In fact, we touched down just before midnight, and folks were still out celebrating. You had families draping themselves in flags, there were a lot of emotions, people seemingly very happy. What's interesting is when you speak to those individuals, those who have been, say, ten plus years out of Venezuela, say they have their lives here in Colombia. No matter what changes in Venezuela, they have no real desire to move back. But those who have been here less than that, and it seems to be a rough average of ten years or so, say they do want to go home. They want to try to reestablish their lives. So this could be a place where we see a few things. You could see folks who are fearing the chaos, fearing more instability, fearing more fracturing coming from Venezuela into Colombia. You could also see those who are fearing retaliation, because perhaps they're aligned with Maduro. Then on this side, you could see a reverse migration. Folks who want to go home, want to go back to Venezuela, and this is where many of them would return on that crossing. But on this Sunday morning, as of now, it's tranquil. It's not a rush in either direction. Folks skeptical, hopeful, but uncertainty still in place.