Because the number of Peruvians leaving their country has quadrupled

Because the number of Peruvians leaving their country has quadrupled


In 2022, 401,740 Peruvians left the country and never returned. The number has almost quadrupled compared to 2021. What is this increase in departures from the country due to?




His parents, brothers, and uncles had been in the United States for at least seven years, but JC stayed in Peru to attend college.

Eventually, he was persuaded to join his family in the United States, largely due to the violence in Lima, the Peruvian capital.

“The pandemic was strong, many of my relatives are gone, the situation was not good with governments coming and going. Also, my neighborhood was not quiet,” JC, who prefers not to be identified, tells BBC News Mundo (Spanish Service of the BBC).

The 30-year-old says he was the victim of extortion in Peru.

“How did they know my family was here? [nos EUA], they called me from prison to ask me for money, they thought I had a lot of money. So I decided to come.”

“I had to quit my job and start from scratch.”

In 2022, he traveled from Lima to Mexico, sought asylum at the US border, and arrived in Paterson, New Jersey on the country’s east coast.

JC was one of 401,740 Peruvians who left the country in 2022 and never returned, according to data sent by Peru’s National Superintendence for Migration to BBC News Mundo.

By June 2023, the number had risen to 415,393.

Numbers almost four times higher than those of 2021, the year in which 110,185 Peruvians left their country and never returned.



Peruvians are waiting to cross the border into the United States

“I worked in various sectors: construction, roofing, as a waiter, as a dishwasher… Until the opportunity for this restaurant arose”, says JC, referring to the restaurant he manages in Paterson, which opened a few months ago with relatives who already lived in the city.

Alejandra, 28, also lives in Paterson. She left Peru in 2022 “for economic reasons” and prefers not to reveal her surname.

“I studied communications at university. But I was going through a bad moment in my career. I was working for a well-known channel in Peru, as a reporter. But I didn’t have a fixed contract, I just [trabalhos] sporadic,” he tells BBC News Mundo.

“I wanted something to be fixed. But then strikes came, demonstrations. Also journalists were attacked, so I didn’t see myself there anymore,” recalls the young woman.

“A friend said she would come [para os EUA]so I said, I’ll give it a try and see what happens.”

He flew from Lima to Mexico City. She later sought asylum at the American border and now works in a bakery.

Since their arrival, JC and Alejandra have not returned to Peru and are hoping to regularize their immigrant status.

In addition to the United States, the main destinations of Peruvians are Spain, Chile and Mexico, although this does not mean that they have necessarily stayed or settled in these places.

The fact that Mexico is one of the most popular destinations led analysts consulted by BBC News Mundo to believe that the intention of many Peruvians is actually to reach the US border and seek asylum.

But what explains this increase in Peruvian departures? Here are four possible reasons, according to respondents.

1. Pandemic and economic crisis



Jorge Chavez Airport, Lima

The last wave of increased Peruvian emigration occurred in 2018, but the closure of borders due to the pandemic halted the trend in 2020, according to data from the National Superintendence of Migration.

“During boom economy (2010-2017), few Peruvians have seen significant improvements in their lives. There were unsolved problems in education, health care, access to water. This is one of the reasons why emigration started to increase in 2018,” Mundo Ulla Berg, author of two books on Peruvian emigration, tells BBC News.

Now that borders are open again, “the trend is picking up again,” says sociologist Tania Vásquez, an expert on demography and migration at the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP).

Because just as the pandemic has interrupted the upward curve of emigration, its economic effects can now favor it.

In 2020, Peru’s economy contracted by 11%, according to the country’s Central Reserve Bank (BCR).

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

“The government handled the pandemic very badly. People had to consume their small savings while the economy was paralyzed,” criticizes Teófilo Altamirano, author of the book Exodus: Peruvians Abroad.

“Poverty has increased, which generates dissatisfaction in families … Children do not have access to a good education, good health”.

2. Political crisis



Dina Boluarte, president of Peru, the sixth person in office since 2018

For Altamirano, the political crisis that has been affecting the country for at least five years – Peru has had six presidents since 2018 – also brings with it economic difficulties.

“This creates a great instability in the economy for foreign investment. Investors have had to withdraw because they are unable to plan for the long term. This results in stagnation, decline in the Peruvian economy, in GDP,” adds the author.

The combination of economic crisis and political instability “has made people say ‘there’s nothing for us here,'” says Ulla Berg, who believes now “more Peruvians think they have a better chance of receiving asylum in the United States compared to the last ten years, when your country was more stable.”

3. Violence

According to the latest IEP survey on the subject, dated June 2023, no less than 80% of Peruvians say they feel very or somewhat insecure on the streets of the country due to delinquency and organized crime.

“When I interview people who are now emigrating, they tell me it’s an important part [de sua decisão] it’s the concern for the safety of their families, for how they will grow up in this insecure country,” says Vásquez.

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

Violence in Peru has worsened during the pandemic as more people have been left unemployed, says Ulla Berg. According to the specialist, many of the Peruvians seeking asylum say they have already suffered extortion, as in the case of JC.



80% of Peruvians feel little or very insecure on the street

“Many people feel that their lives are in danger because of this widespread violence, but also against people with small businesses or families overseas,” says Berg.

The IEP survey shows that 42% “report having been the victim of crime in the last three years”. In the last year, 28% say they have suffered a crime.

4. Migratory networks

Despite the seriousness of the problems presented above, Vásquez does not believe they are necessarily the main ones. He underlines another factor that he considers very important.

“One of the reasons I think is ‘cumulative causality’ is key,” he says. “Every time a country experiences emigration, migratory networks are created in the destinations it goes to. When these networks exist, there is more and more emigration”.

Since the Peruvian emigration of the 1980s and 1990s, caused by the economic crisis and internal armed conflicts, these networks have grown and diversified, according to the sociologist.

In 1992 there were about 1.5 million Peruvians abroad, three times the number in 1981, according to studies by Altamirano.

Between 1990 and 2020, Peruvians abroad numbered 3,309,635, equal to 10.1% of the country’s population in 2020, according to INEI data.

“There are more mobile families, more transnationals. We didn’t have these families in Peru before. There are more resources to emigrate, more experiences accumulated, mobility practices that we didn’t have in the 90s”, explains Vásquez.



Peru has had several anti-government protests in recent months.

Berg disagrees with this hypothesis.

“Cumulative causality can 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 in so few years “.

“The economic and political crisis, the violence and crime resulting from unresolved social problems and the impact of the pandemic are important parts of the picture that explains why all this is happening now.”

Altamirano and Vásquez also argue that they are avoiding the term “emigrant” for the time being.

“Emigration is measured when a person leaves for more than a year”, explains Altamirano.

“Let’s wait until 2024, 2025, to see if they are emigrants in the strict sense of the term. Then we will be able to say how many are emigrants and how many are not. It takes a lot more research to say that 400,000 Peruvians emigrated in 2022. We will see if it becomes a standard. “

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

“The situation could change in a few years because these Peruvians could return. The real migratory balance remains to be seen”.

Source: Terra

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