LIMA — Peru extends the visa and passport requirement to all Venezuelans who want to enter its territory starting next July 2, after lifting an exception that allowed entry only with an identity card in certain cases for humanitarian reasons for five years.
A regulation from the National Superintendency of Migration, published on Thursday, established that in five days a directive that authorized access to Peruvian territory only with an identity card for minors and adults to meet with their family unit and for people in vulnerable situations will cease to apply.
In this way, Peru standardizes the requirement of a valid passport and visa for entry to Peru for all Venezuelans without exception, after five years of special flexibility.
According to the Peruvian government, there have only been 16 admissions of Venezuelans due to being in a vulnerable situation so far this year.
Immigration control
The authorities justified the new decision to mitigate “the risks associated with immigration control with documents that do not have the security measures of passports and visas.”
As a transitional measure, it will allow, for one time only, Venezuelans with expired passports to request a change in immigration status, as long as they have entered the country before the entry into force of this new resolution.
In 2019, the government of then-President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski eased the entry of Venezuelans for humanitarian reasons as part of a policy of support in the face of the crisis in Venezuela and of positioning in the region against the political model of Venezuela and the regime of Nicolás Maduro.
“Venezuelans are welcome in Peru because in the 1970s, when there was a dictatorship here, many Peruvians went to Venezuela,” Kuczynski said in 2018.
In recent years, the subsequent governments of Pedro Castillo and the current president, Dina Boluarte, have been critical of the presence of Venezuelan migrants in Peru, questioning that there is an increase in insecurity in the country due to the action of criminal gangs such as the Aragua Train, with members of that nationality.
In April of last year, with just four months in power, Boluarte announced measures to control immigrants and to preserve order at the borders.
Source: AP
