30,000 Venezuelans cross into this Colombian town each day. Now it's the scene of an escalating aid showdown

CUCUTA, Colombia - For the beleaguered people of Venezuela, this Colombian border town has served for years as a kind of safety valve - a way station en route from their reeling homeland, or a place to score food, medicine and other basics no longer available in Venezuela.

"I came to get vaccinations for my daughter," said Almari Ruiz, cradling her 11-month-old, Victoria, as she moved forward with the throngs crossing the Simon Bolivar International Bridge on a recent afternoon. "It's hard to find them anymore in Venezuela."

Each day, authorities say, more than 30,000 pedestrians cross from Venezuela into Colombia; most are on subsistence shopping forays, but many are joining the exodus of millions who have given up on their homeland and emigrated elsewhere in recent years.

Now, however, as the Venezuelan crisis escalates, Cucuta has taken on a broader geopolitical role - as a symbolic and logistics hub for intensifying U.S. efforts to oust Venezuelan President