Chile enacts immigration law that will facilitate expulsions

“The main objective of this new Migration Law is to put order in our house through an orderly, safe and regular migration policy that allows legal migration and combats illegal immigration,” said President Sebastián Piñera during the enactment. The new standard replaces an existing one since 1975.

If, with the previous law, a foreigner could arrive in Chile as a tourist and then change his situation to a worker in the country, this cannot be done with the new regulations.

The new law “allows foreigners who want to come to Chile to do so by telling the truth about their intentions, avoiding deception and abuse,” so they will need to apply for a visa before arriving in the country, Piñera said.

In addition, the regulations “facilitate the administrative expulsions of migrants who enter Chile illegally, by clandestine steps, without complying with our laws or validating their criminal records,” continued the president, lamenting that at least five people have lost their lives. so far this year at illegal border crossings in the north.

“We do not want organized crime, drug trafficking, smuggling, trafficking and human trafficking or those who do not respect our laws to enter our country,” he added.

The regulations were processed over a period of eight years and were taken to the Constitutional Court, which eliminated six articles, including one that called for facilitating the assisted return of children who enter the country alone, which was declared unconstitutional.

Chile was denounced this week by Amnesty International, claiming that the new project “could reduce the opportunities for migrants to regularize their legal status once they are in Chile and that it undermines the principle of non-refoulement”, as happened with the 100 migrants were irregularly expelled in February, mostly Venezuelans and Colombians, while judicial decisions were still being processed, he said.

The National Coordinator of Migrants categorically rejected the new law. “It will generate profound damage not only for those who are currently subjected to forced migration in the region, but for the entire migrant population that already resides in the country,” said its president, Vanessa González.