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Protection Monitoring Peru: Snapshot (July 2022)

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This snapshot summarizes the main findings of the Protection Monitoring conducted in Lima and Tacna, Peru in July 2022 as part of the humanitarian intervention of the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and ENCUENTROS SJM in the country. This project is implemented with funding from the European Union Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid (ECHO).

To view the interactive Dashboard with the results from this period and from the beginning of the Protection Monitoring program, click here.

INTRODUCTION

Over the course of July 2022, DRC and ENCUENTROS SJM interviewed 34 households accounting for a total of 129 persons. Since the beginning of the Protection Monitoring exercise in Peru in October 2020, 1,434 households have been interviewed reaching a total of 5,028 persons.

ANALYSIS OF THE PROTECTION SITUATION

The Peruvian Government proceeds with the extension of the Temporary Residence Permit up to two years, regulating the migratory situation and granting rights and duties for foreigners in Peru.

In July, the Peruvian Migration authorities made an important announcement in regards with the extension of the deadline to manage the Temporary Residence Permit Card (CPP), which grants rights and duties to foreigners and inserts them into Peruvian society for a period of 90 calendar days.

As announced, the interested individuals will be able to manage the document until October 2 virtually through the Digital Immigration Agency. All interested persons will be able to manage their documentation until October 2, 2022 virtually through the Digital Immigration Agency. However, the access to digital platforms, is a challenge that the population must also assume, since, due to the context of the health emergency, all these procedures are carried out through the digital platforms of Migration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a process that for most migrants and refugees is widely complicated, knowing their discontinuous access to the internet.

Likewise, this document will now be valid for 2 years. This allows the regularization of persons in an irregular migratory situation who entered before October 20, 2020. Although the validity of this document will not exceed the duration of two years, it will potentially allow the renewal of the documentation to those persons whose residence permit granted by the Migration authorities has expired since October 2020, but who still remain in Peruvian territory. Additionally, this announcement intends to motivate people who entered the country without having carried out the migratory control to regularize their entry and residence in Peru.

Although this measure allows extending the time for immigration regularization, the requirements of the process are not clear. On the one hand, there is no reference to the evidence necessary to demonstrate entry into the country before the deadline, which would imply an impediment for people who entered in an irregular manner without immigration control or who are without documentation. In the same way, there have been identified people who have independently managed such procedure, indicating a date of entry to Peru after October 20, 2020 and have been granted the CPP, so there are doubts as to whether such date is mandatory.

This announcement is expected to reduce a significant burden borne by Venezuelan migrants and refugees who were unable to cover the financial cost of fines imposed by the Migration authorities due to the expiration of their legal residence permits.

Two days before the announcement of the extension, more than 100,000 Venezuelan migrants and refugees were called to pay costly fines imposed by the National Migration System, amounts they were unable to pay due to their limited economic resources, facing the fear of being forced to leave the country. In the case of people who have exceeded their time of stay, the cost of the fine is 4.60 soles per day (a little more than one dollar) and 46 soles per day in the case of people who did not make extensions on time. Knowing that DRC Monitoring shows that 76.6% of the people surveyed earn less than 900 soles per month, these fines are unaffordable for families already living in a precarious situation.

Despite the fact that the migratory and refugee situation is crucial and affects different strata of the political and socioeconomic context of Peru; on July 28, during the presidential speech that is traditionally made in Congress, there was no mention of the expulsion of foreigners from Peru as had been stated in the inaugural speech of the previous year. Additionally, there was also no allusion to migration policy, nor to measures for the protection of the foreign population residing in the country. The absence of any relevant reference to migration policies suggests that no public policy decisions prioritizing complementary protection measures for refugees and migrantsin Peru are currently being foreseen.