Besserer Rayas et al. Comparative Migration Studies (2024) 12:47 Between 2015 and 2021, Colombia built several paper bridges. The following four cases exemplify these processes. 1. Created a special permit for family reunification Facing mass expulsions of Colombian citizens and their families from Venezuela, the Colombian state introduced a family reunification policy in 2015. Venezuela had declared a state of emergency and over 10,000 Colombian citizens were expelled or felt sufficiently intimidated to leave (DW, 2015; IOM, 2021). The Colombian government set up a task force that created a Special Temporary Permit for Entry and Permanence (PEIP, following the acronym in Spanish) for the Venezuelan children, spouses, and couples of Colombian nationals who had been “expelled, deported, or had returned” from Venezuela (Decree 1067 of 2015). One official who worked closely with then-president Juan Manuel Santos’ (2010–2018) Border Management Office (Gerencia de Fronteras), described this period of immigration policymaking as both “seminal” to subsequent efforts and “modeled on disaster management,” insofar as it was ad hoc and sought to provide an efficient solution to an immediate but (in the minds of officials then) temporary problem (Interview with public official A). The Colombian government’s office for dealing with natural disasters, the Risk and Disaster Unit, was involved in policy implementation. To obtain the permit, Venezuelans were enrolled in a database of people affected by expulsion then only subsequently had to present birth certificates and Venezuelan identity documents with an apostille or a stamp from a public notary. PEIPs were temporary, lasting for 180 days, intended as a transitional step to then obtaining more permanent legal status such as a residence visa. Importantly, these permits required less paperwork than visas or other permits. Decree 1067 and its future iterations were issued by then-president Juan Manuel Santos, and were not sent to the legislative branch for legal backing. In-depth interviews with Colombian immigration policymakers (Interview with public officials A and B) indicate that the set of decrees in 2015 around family reunification were the first of their kind (i.e., innovation), then served as a model for subsequent measures to adjust requirements (adaptation), as elaborated in Section V. 2. Introduced nationality by birth Venezuelan migration to Colombia significantly increased after the 2015 expulsions, leading to a noteworthy transformation in 2019 regarding the principles governing how to acquire Colombian nationality, especially children. Colombia is one of the few countries in the Americas without unconditional ius soli at birth. Instead, those eligible for nationality are those with a Colombian parent; those born to foreign parents when, “one of the parents were domiciled in the Republic at the moment of birth” (Nationality Law – Law 43 of 1993); and foreigners with legal residence in the country (ius domicili) (Escobar, 2015; Vink et al., 2021). However, proving domicile became a major roadblock for irregular immigrants’ children; until these changes in 2019, children born in Colombia to irregular Venezuelan immigrants could not acquire Colombian nationality (Interviews with public officials C and D).4 The state thus decided to grant automatic nationality to children born to all 4 A 2005 law, interpreting the San José Convention on Children’s Rights, allowed for the children of foreigners born in Colombia to forego proving domicile in Colombia if their origin country did not provide the children nationality; Page 9 of 20