Four possible reasons why the number of Peruvians leaving the country has quadrupled

His parents, siblings, and twelve uncles had been in the United States for at least seven years, but JC had stayed in Peru for his university studies.

What ultimately convinced him to meet his relatives was the threat of crime he faced in Lima, the capital, he says.

“The pandemic was strong, many of my relatives left, the situation was not good because of the governments that came and went. Moreover, it was not quiet in my neighborhood,” says JC, who prefers not to reveal his name, to BBC Mundo.

“Because they knew my family was here, they called me from prison to demand money from me, they thought I had a lot of money. They were waiting for me when I came back from work in the evening. So I made the decision to come,” says the 30-year-old Peruvian.

“I had to quit my job and start all over again,” says JC, who traveled from Lima to Mexico in 2022, applied for asylum at the US border and arrived in Paterson, New Jersey, on the country’s east coast.

JC was one of them 401,740 Peruvians who left the country in 2022 and have not returnedThis is evident from figures sent to BBC Mundo by the National Superintendence of Migrations of Peru.

Until June 2023, the number grew to 415,393.

These figures nearly quadruple the number of non-return flights of 2021, the year in which 110,185 Peruvians left their country.

“I worked in several fields: construction, roofers (ceilings), as a waiter, as a dishwasher (dishwasher), until the opportunity for this restaurant arose,” says JC, referring to the dining room he now manages in Paterson and that opened a few years ago, together with some of their relatives who already lived there.

28-year-old Alejandra also lives in Paterson, who also arrived from Peru in 2022 “for economic reasons” and prefers not to give her last name.

“I studied Communication at university. But I had a bad time in my career. She worked as a reporter for a well-known channel in Peru. But he didn’t have a permanent contract, but eventually (commissions),” he tells BBC Mundo.

“I wanted something to be fixed. But the strikes came, the marches. Moreover, the journalists were attacked, so I no longer saw myself there,” he says. “A friend just told me she was coming to the States, so I said, I’m going to try and see what happens.”

He flew from Lima to Mexico City. He then applied for asylum at the US border and now works in a bakery.

Since their arrival, JC and Alejandra have not returned to Peru and hope to regularize their immigration status.

In addition to the United States, according to Migration Data, Peruvians also mainly went to Spain, Chile and Mexico, although that does not necessarily mean that they have stayed or settled there.

The fact that Mexico is one of the most chosen destinations leads analysts polled by BBC Mundo to believe that the intention of many Peruvians is to actually reach the US border and seek asylum.

But what accounts for this increase in the departure of Peruvians? Here are four possible reasons.

1. Pandemic and economic crisis

The last surge in Peruvian emigration actually dates back to 2018, but border closures caused by the pandemic ended the trend in 2020, migration figures show.

“During the economic boom (2010-2017), few Peruvians saw significant improvements in their lives. There were problems that were not solved in the areas of education, health care and access to water. That’s one of the reasons why emigration started to pick up in 2018,” he told BBC Mundo ula mountainauthor of two books on Peruvian emigration.

Now that the borders are open again, “the trend is regaining its course,” the sociologist told BBC Mundo Tania Vasquezexpert in demography and migration from the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP).

Because just as the pandemic interrupted the rise in the emigration curve, its economic effects may now be beneficial.

In 2020, Peruvian economy shrank by 11%This is reported by the Central Reserve Bank (BCR) of the country.

Despite the slow recovery, poverty increased by 1.6% in 2022 compared to 2021 and 7.3% compared to 2019, according to the latest National Household Survey (ENAHO) from the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI) from Peru.

“The government has handled the pandemic very badly. People had to consume their little savings while the economy was paralyzed,” criticizes Teophilo Altamirano, author of the book “Exodus. Peruvians Abroad (1992)”.

“Poverty has increased, leading to discontent in families. Children do not have access to good education and good health,” he told BBC Mundo.

In addition, “Peru had a severe lockdown and, as a result, a massive collapse in economic growth, which has contributed to many people wanting to leave, as three-quarters of workers are in the informal sector and that sector was hit hard by the pandemic . . Many people fell into poverty”, Ulla Berg analyses.

2. Political crisis

For Altamirano, the political crisis that has hit the country for at least five years – Peru has had six presidents since 2018 – is also causing economic problems.

“This creates great instability in the economy for foreign investment. Investors have had to pull out because they cannot plan for the long term. This translates into stagnation, into the decline of the Peruvian economy, of GDP,” the anthropologist adds.

The combination of the economic crisis with political instability “has caused people to say there is nothing for us here,” says Ulla Berg, who believes that now “more Peruvians think they have a better chance of getting asylum in the US than in the United States.” the past decade, when his country was more stable.”

3. Insecurity of civilians

80% of Peruvians say they feel very unsafe or somewhat unsafe on the country’s streets due to crime and organized crime, according to the latest IEP survey on the subject, dated June 2023.

“When I interview people who are emigrating now, they tell me that an important part of their decision is caring for their families’ safety: how they are going to grow up in this uncertain country,” Vásquez told BBC Mundo.

Altamirano also believes that “there is dissatisfaction with continuing to live in Peru because of the day-to-day insecurity of citizens.”

Insecurity in Peru has worsened during the pandemic as more and more people became unemployed, says Ulla Berg. According to the expert, many of the Peruvians seeking asylum complain that they are victims of extortion, as in the case of JC.

“Many people feel that their lives are in danger as a result of this widespread violence, but also directed against people with small businesses or families abroad,” says Berg.

The survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies shows that 42% “report having been a victim of a crime in the past three years”. In the past year, 28% say they have been involved in some form of crime.

4. Migration Networks

Despite the seriousness of these issues, Vásquez does not believe that the above three are necessarily the main reasons why Peruvians seem to be leaving the country.

“One of the reasons I consider fundamental is ‘cumulative causality’,” he says. “Every time a country experiences emigration, migration networks are created in the destinations they go to. If these networks exist, there will always be more emigration”.

Since the Peruvian emigrations in the 1980s and 1990s, caused by the economic crisis at the time and the internal armed conflict, these networks have grown and diversified, according to the sociologist.

According to studies by Altamirano, there were about 1.5 million Peruvians abroad in 1992, three times as many as in 1981.

According to INEI figures, a total of 3,309,635 Peruvians lived abroad between 1990 and 2020, 10.1% of the country’s 2020 population.

“There are more mobile, more transnational families. We used to not have those families in Peru. There are more resources to emigrate, more accumulated experiences and mobility practices that we didn’t have in the 1990s,” says Vásquez.

Berg disagrees with this theory. “Cumulative causes may explain the existence of a migration infrastructure that helps people leave, borrow money and settle abroad, but it cannot explain why Peruvians are leaving in such large numbers within a few years,” says the author.

“The economic and political crisis, the violence and crime caused by unresolved social problems, and the impact of the pandemic are important parts of the picture of why this is happening now,” he says.

Regardless of the causes, Altamirano and Vásquez agree that it is still too early to call these travelers “emigrants.”

“Emigration is measured when someone leaves for more than a year,” Altamirano clarifies.

“Let’s wait until 2024, 2025, to see if they are indeed emigrants in the strict sense of the word. There we can see how many emigrants there are and how many are not. Much more research is needed, an analysis that shows that 400,000 Peruvians will have emigrated by 2022. We will see if this becomes a pattern,” he adds.

Vásquez believes that “it would not be rigorous to say we are witnessing an exodus.”

“This may change in a few years because these Peruvians can return. The question remains about the real migration balance,” he explains. (JO)

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