Chilean police check the belongings of migrants close to the Chile-Bolivia border. Photo: El País/Diego Reyes.
The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, announced that his country will expel undocumented migrants within the next five days.
President Boric ordered the Chilean police to detain and expel within five days all undocumented migrants who have an outstanding arrest warrant against them.
In addition, he announced that those foreigners who have not complied with the voluntary registration mechanism will also be expelled, even if they do not have any arrest warrant against them.
“Regarding those foreigners who are in an irregular situation and have not complied with the voluntary registration, even if they do not have an arrest warrant against them, the expulsion decree will be issued,” the Chilean president said.
The biometric registration plan for undocumented foreigners is a mechanism in which migrants had to submit their data, so that the Chilean State would be aware of the identity of those who entered Chile through irregular means in the last five years. This plan has already been completed, and the Chilean State now stores the information of 127,000 people.
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Gabriel Boric highlighted during a television broadcast that his government has increased the security budget to the highest in the last eight years. He added that this budget increase will allow the government to finance a greater number of migrant expulsions.
The Chilean president further added that the National Migration Service will be able to carry out up to 2,000 administrative and judicial expulsions of migrants in 2024.
Boric’s deportation announcement comes less than a week after the opposition threatened the minister of Interior and Security, Carolina Tohá, with impeachment proceedings against her if she does not carry out the expulsion of 12,000 migrants before the end of the year.
For the last two years, there has been a steady campaign of hatred and xenophobia in Chile against Venezuelan migrants, who have been violently attacked in many Chilean cities. In 2021, a violent mob attacked and burned down a Venezuelan migrant encampment in the northern Chilean city of Iquique.
(RedRadioVE) by Ana Perdigón
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/DZ
