South American Countries Are Closing Their Doors To Venezuelan Migrants

Venezuelan migrants Yonaimer Godoy and Mail Levea talk to Godoy''s father and their two-year-old son from a migrant shelter in Lima, Peru [Megan Janetsky/Al Jazeera]

Al Jazeera: Venezuelans face new barriers, xenophobia across South America

Latin American countries, once relatively open for Venezuelans, introduce new restrictions for migrants and refugees.

Lima, Peru - Yonaimer Godoy and his wife peered into his cracked phone, their eyes stained with tears.

"What are you doing over there?" Godoy's father asked him through a video call.

"Crying."

It was their son's second birthday, and they were stuck in a migrant shelter in Lima, Peru. They had left their home in Venezuela with a goal: earn enough money to help their family and eventually get them out of their collapsing country.

But Peru, the second-biggest receiver of the more than four million migrant and refugee exodus from Venezuela, had been hard on them. With temporary tourist visas, they were unable to find the work they were searching for. Instead, they were forced to sell drinks on street corners for about seven dollars a day and said they've faced a rising wave of xenophobia.

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WNU Editor: The exodus of Venezuelans fleeing their country has not stopped, with many predicting that this crisis is only going to get worse. The economies in Latin America are not structured to accept large number of migrants, and (not surprising) they are responding accordingly.