In Peru, the deadline for foreigners to regularize their immigration status expired on November 10, 2023 – without the option to extend it. Anyone who does not do so risks deportation.

The message or ultimatum was mainly addressed to Venezuelans, as La República reported in October that there were 200,000 immigrants from Venezuela who were “undocumented” and who were expected to update their immigration status and begin the process of immigration. Temporary Permanent Permit (PTP). Otherwise “they will be deported,” they warned.

On October 22, 2023, authorities indicated that “more than 160,000 foreigners, mainly Venezuelans, have managed to start their procedures.”

What happened to the Venezuelans after the deadline?

The much-announced date had arrived: November 10. It was estimated “that between 5,000 and 6,000 people would be displaced, the majority of whom are Venezuelan nationals.”

Peru’s presidency said that between September and October, “the Ministry of the Interior responded to more than 84,000 requests for regularization of immigration status and 79,000 requests for amnesty,” EFE reported.

Meanwhile, President Dina Boluarte declared on Tuesday, November 21, that “hundreds of Venezuelans” “voluntarily left the country, across the border with Ecuador.”

Laura, a Venezuelan who arrived in Tulcán (Ecuador) with her partner, stated: “We cannot be regularizedsince obtaining documents in our country is expensive and almost impossible due to corruption,” El Universo published on the 27 of this month.

Two weeks earlier, on November 14, La República published that the “border between Peru and Ecuador, which corresponds to Tumbes, increased its influx after the announcement of the expulsion of undocumented foreigners.

Using data from Peru’s National Police, they reported that “up to a total of 400 people leave the country every day, most of them entire families heading to Venezuela.”

What we have already noticed is that the entry of migrants is minimal and their voluntary departure is massive, as we reach up to 400 people.

PNP General Javier Gonzáles, head of the Tumbes Police Front

On November 21, after Boluarte had spoken, it was learned from the Tumbes Police Front that “since November 11, a total of 5,250 foreign citizens, mainly Venezuelans, have left the country to return to their places of origin, after” the deadline set by The government’s decision to regularize their immigration status in Peruvian territory has expired.”

Tumbes has made it easier for them to leave the country via the northern border, the police assured.

To “guarantee” this return, “a corridor was established between the Aguas Verdes terminal and the International Bridge, in the province of Zarumilla, in the Tumbes region,” the government of Peru announced.

‘We are good and hardworking people, but we have not been able to regularize ourselves’: the return pilgrimage of Venezuelans leaving Peru

Ecuador has proposed a humanitarian corridor

More than 90 percent of the foreigners who accepted the regularization process were Venezuelans, Migraciones Perú said for the same 21 of this month, according to EFE.

Migrations reported that 214,633 foreigners had applied for the CPP as of November 10. Of these, 202,398 are Venezuelans and represent 94% of the total number of applications, El Comercio added.

Hours before the deadline for immigrants in Peru expired, Juan Zapata, head of the Interior Ministry under Guillermo Lasso, spoke from Ecuador.

“The most appropriate roadmap that we are looking at is to create a humanitarian corridor so that from Peru people who have not met this requirement can be transferred directly to Venezuela, but for that we also need to work with the Colombian authorities,” he said. Zapata, in La República.

On Monday, November 27, 2023, Carlos Realpe, head of the migration service of the National Police in Carchi, said – as published in El Universo – that they were coordinating with the Ministry of Government for the creation of a humanitarian corridor, which would provide transport to foreigners from Huaquillas to Rumichaca and from that sector to the Colombian-Venezuelan border.

However, migration did not preclude Venezuelans leaving Peru from entering Ecuador through clandestine passages in Huaquillas.

Venezuelan migrants leaving Peru for fear of deportation are said to be entering Ecuador through clandestine passages

It was reported from Tulcán at the beginning of this week that the land terminal receives more than 200 Venezuelan migrants every day who hope to return to their country.

Óscar Pérez, president of the non-profit organization Unión Venezolana in Peru, quoted in El Comercio in mid-November, announced that many Venezuelans were not processing the CPP because they were “refugee applicants,” and the press emphasized that this was “a condition which exempts them from deportation from the country.

(JO)