Venezuelan migrants walk under police scrutiny, but no deportation applies

They walked through a trail to enter Ecuadorian territory and take an access to the Pan-American highway. Dania González chose that alternative because she did not have a passport that would allow her to formally pass through immigration controls.

One kilometer from the control of Mascarilla, on the provincial border between Imbabura and Carchi, this Venezuelan boarded a truck in which other of her compatriots fleeing the crisis of her country also embarked. The driver who moved them said that he only did a charity work when he took them.

Since the weekend that began to demand passport, dozens of Venezuelans are using informal steps to enter and continue, mostly to Peru. They are rushing before that nation begins to demand a passport from the 25th.

“We are illegal, we have to get to Peru …”, Gonzalez shouted as he hurried to the truck.

The policemen who travel the area do not have the disposition to arrest those who enter in that way. Nor is a protocol being applied to retain and deport them. “So far, the protocol for deportation in Ecuador has not been stipulated,” said Jorge Sánchez, head of the Immigration Police of Imbabura.

The uniformed people have been instructed to explain to the Venezuelan citizens the new provisions, to protect security and to protect human rights.

However, Ecuadorians who help foreigners to mobilize can be sanctioned.

According to article 2, literal 5 of the 907 migratory agreement, the person who facilitates the evasion of the migratory filter to foreigners in the entry or exit of the national territory, will be sanctioned with a pecuniary fine of five basic salaries.

From January until now at least 547,000 Venezuelans have crossed the northern border of Ecuador. Only the first week of August 30,000 Venezuelans entered the bridge Rumichaca.

During the last few days, in the Pan-American North of Ecuador, it is usual to see Venezuelan migrants walking, carrying their luggage and accompanied by their families or friends.

Some even climb camouflaged in the trailers that enter Ecuador with cargo. Human Rights organizations have indicated that a large percentage is of scarce resources that they travel with little money and ask for contributions.

According to the AFP agency, only from Quito to Huaquillas Venezuelans need 20 hours of displacement and 27 dollars for transfers.

Interior Minister Mauro Toscanini insisted on the need to ask for a passport for foreigners. “We want to regulate, to know who is here, to attend to them even well, as they deserve, but we need them to be identified.”

Consulted if the measure would worsen the crisis that Venezuelans already live, he responded: “The crisis of who? … To deepen the crisis of the Ecuadorians, well, we have to think also of the Ecuadorians”.

The director of Migration Colombia, Christian Krüger, yesterday urged Ecuador and Peru to define a single policy against Venezuelans, after warning about the risk of an “irregular migration”. (I)

Ecuadornews:Source: https://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2018/08/22/nota/6917198/caminan-bajo-mirada-policial-no-se-aplica-deportacion