In this article, I discuss how some Andean migrants to the urban periphery of Lima (Peru) reacted to the political violence and economic crisis of the 80s and 90s by turning to the messianic millenarian movement of the Israelites of the New Universal Covenant. I explore the strategies of adaptation, social recomposition and economic insertion of these migrants in the urban environment where this religious group developed. My main argument will be that conversion to this religious movement should be understood in terms of the discrimination and exclusion suffered by these migrants, as well as relation to their access to economic resources in the urban context.