This South American Country Is Latest To Tighten Immigration Rule Against Venezuelans

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Aug. 24, 2018: It’s not just the US that is tightening its immigration rules; another South American country has moved to make it harder for Venezuelans to enter.

As of tomorrow, August 25, 2018, Peru will require all Venezuelans trying to migrate there to have valid passports. So far, Venezuelans have been allowed to enter Peru with just their ID cards.

Peruvian Prime Minister César Villanueva said requiring Venezuelans to show their passport at the border did not mean that Peru was “closing the door” on Venezuelan migrants but he said that Venezuelan ID cards did not provide enough information and could easily be forged.

More than two million Venezuelans have fled their country since 2014. They are fleeing a severe economic crisis which has led to severe shortages of food, medicine and basic goods.

According to UN figures, 26,000 entered Peru in 2017 but Peruvian migration chief Eduardo Sevilla puts the number of Venezuelans currently in Peru at 400,000.

In Lima, this week, CCTV reports that hundreds of applicants were seen queuing up for days to get their papers in order. They say the system has been overwhelmed by the influx of so many applicants.

Peru follows Ecuador in changing its immigration rules against an influx of Venezuelans.

And as the Venezuela’s President, Nicolas Maduro, this week cut the value of the Bolivar by some 96 percent in an attempt to arrest the hyperinflation that has helped to bring the country to its economic knees. The change is part of a project that Maduro said will represent a new economic future. The minimum wage is also expected to rise around 35 times. But some experts argued that the sums don’t add up.

“He’s doing very bad at the moment,” Angel Alvarado, an economist in Caracas, told CCTV. “This measure, this decision is worse and worse than the past because it is impossible to do that. I think he is on a Utopian way of life: ‘I want a better place, better wages. I want a better economy.’ I also want the same. But you have to work.”