BREVARD, Calif. — Julia Paredes believed it was now or never to move to the United States. She was just days away from Mexico requiring visas for Peruvian visitors. If she didn't act soon, she would have had to travel much more dangerously and secretly overland to settle with her sister in Dallas.
Mexico on Monday began requiring visas for Peruvians in response to a large influx of migrants from the South American country, following a similar influx of Venezuelans, Ecuadorians and Brazilians. That effectively eliminated the option of flying to a Mexican city near the U.S. border, as Paredes, 45, did just before it was too late.
“We had to treat it as an emergency,” Paredes said. He fed miners lunch in Arequipa, Peru, borrowed money and flew to Tijuana, Mexico, across the street from San Diego. Last month, her smugglers ushered her through a remote opening in her border wall and onto unpaved land in California. There, she and about 100 other migrants from around the world shivered over a campfire after a light morning rain, waiting for overwhelmed Border Patrol agents to drive them to the station. For processing.
Senior U.S. officials told reporters in Guatemala this week ahead of a meeting of top diplomats from about 20 countries in the Western Hemisphere that they praised Mexico's crackdown on air travel from Peru and said the visa request was a joint effort to combat illegal immigration. He argued that it is an important means of
For critics, halting air travel will only encourage riskier choices. Mexico's introduction of visa requirements in January 2022 sharply reduced illegal immigration by Venezuelans, but the lull did not last long. Last year, Venezuelans made up nearly two-thirds of the record 520,000 migrants who walked through the Darien Gap, the notorious jungle that straddles parts of Panama and Colombia.
More than 25,000 Chinese people passed through Darien last year. They typically fly to Ecuador, which is known for having few travel restrictions, and illegally cross the U.S. border in San Diego to seek asylum. Immigration courts have a backlog of more than 3 million cases, and it takes years to decide such claims, during which time people can obtain work permits and establish roots.
“People will come no matter what,” said Miguel Yaranga, 22, who flew from Peru's capital Lima to Tijuana and was released by Border Patrol at a bus stop in San Diego on Sunday. He had been ordered to appear in New York immigration court in February 2025, but had told his attorney he intended to settle with his sister on the other side of the country in Bakersfield, California. He said he was confused.
Jeremy McGillivray, deputy head of the United Nations' International Organization for Migration's mission to Mexico, predicts migration from Peru will decline “at least initially” and then pick up as people walk through the Darien Valley to Central America and Mexico. .
Mexico announced last month that it would require visas for Peruvians for the first time since 2012, following a “significant increase” in illegal immigration. A large-scale migration of Peruvians to Mexico began in 2022. From January to March of this year, Peruvians were stopped domestically an average of 2,160 times a month, more than the average of 544 times a month for all of 2023.
In 2022, Peruvians also began showing up at the U.S. border. U.S. Border Patrol apprehended Peruvians an average of about 5,300 times a month last year, but that number dropped to an average of 3,400 arrests a month from January to March amid a broader immigration crackdown by Mexico.
Peru quickly complied with Mexico's visa request, but changed its mind after backlash from the country's tourism industry. In its withdrawal, Peru noted that it is part of a regional economic bloc that includes Mexico, Chile, and Colombia.
Adam Isacson, an analyst with the Washington Office on Latin America, said Peru's membership in the Pacific Alliance with Mexico allows its citizens to travel visa-free for longer periods of time than in other countries.
It is unclear whether Colombia, which is also a major source of immigration, will be next, but Isacson said that while Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador is “in love” with Colombian President Gustavo Petro. He said relations with the Peruvian government were even more strained.
Colombians are consistently near the top of the list of immigrant nationalities arriving at Tijuana's airport. Many find their hotels before their guides take them to the rock-strewn mountains east of the city, where they pass through an opening in the border wall and onto dirt land identified by the Border Patrol as a waiting area. Walk towards.
Brian Ramirez, 25, from Colombia, arrived in the U.S. mainland with his girlfriend last month, just two days after leaving Bogota for Cancun, Mexico, and continuing on another flight to Tijuana. As cold rain and strong winds roared through the crackling of high-voltage power lines, he waited in line with others overnight for Border Patrol agents to pick him up.
The group waiting near the small rural town of Boulevard included several Peruvians who said they had come to escape economic opportunity, violence and political crisis.
Peruvians can avoid the Darien jungle by flying to El Salvador, which introduced visa-free travel for Peruvians in December in retaliation for a similar move by the Peruvian government. But they still have to travel overland through Mexico, where robbery and kidnapping are common.
Ecuadorians who will need a visa to enter Mexico from September 2021 can also fly to El Salvador, but not everyone will be able to do so. Oscar Palacios, 42, said he walked from Darien because he couldn't afford to take a flight.
Palacios, who left his wife and one-year-old child behind in Ecuador with plans to get financial help from the United States, said it took him two weeks to travel from his home near the violent city of Esmeralda to the Mexico-Guatemala border. It then took him two months to cross Mexico, as immigration authorities turned him around three times and sent him back to the south of the country on a bus. He was robbed many times, he said.
Palacios finally arrived in Tijuana and, after spending three nights in a hotel, entered the United States. Border agents who found Palacios with the Turkish and Brazilian migrants drove them to an open dirt lot and waited for a van or bus to take them to the station. process. Looking back on his trip, Palacios said he would rather cross the Darien Valley 100 times than cross Mexico just once.
___
Associated Press writer Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed.
