Migrants in Chile fear what’s next after Kast wins election

Open this photo in gallery:

A faded Chilean flag flutters outside Evena Promesse’s modest home in the unofficially named Port-au-Prince camp, where Haitian migrants in Chile have settled over the past decade.

Ms. Promesse, 48, professes deep appreciation for Chile, where she arrived in 2022 after a stint in Brazil to join her husband in Curicó, an agricultural city roughly 200 kilometres south of Santiago, the national capital.

“It’s quiet here,” she said in her living room, painted in a tasteful shade of pink. “Nobody bothers you.”

But Ms. Promesse, a Haitian citizen, lacks the proper papers to remain in Chile, having slipped through its border with Bolivia.

She had hoped that Chilean officials would offer amnesty for immigrants who have entered the country illegally so she would be allowed to pick cherries in the orchards surrounding Curicó. But with president-elect José Antonio Kast taking office March 11 after winning on a platform of expelling undocumented migrants, optimism has turned to trepidation.

“I’m scared because I’m not from anywhere,” she said, wondering whether she would be returned to Brazil or Haiti. “I no longer have my country.”

Open this photo in gallery:

Chile’s immigrant population has swollen over the past two decades, to nearly 10 per cent of the population from barely 2 per cent in a country of roughly 20 million people. It is the estimated 330,000 immigrants who entered illegally, or who lack documents, that Mr. Kast has in his sights.

He campaigned on building a border wall, criminalizing illegal entries and constructing special prisons for migrants who commit crimes.

“If you do not leave voluntarily, we will arrest you, we will detain you, we will expel you,” Mr. Kast said on the hustings.

A conservative-Catholic father of eight children, Mr. Kast took 58 per cent of the vote in a December runoff against Jeannette Jara, a former labour minister and Communist Party member. His win reversed a leftward shift in Chile that began after 2019 demonstrations over social inequality and two failed attempts at rewriting a constitution established by the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

From December: Six years after Chile’s social uprising, the country is on the verge of electing a far-right leader

It also continued a rightward shift in Latin American politics, which has seen some leaders, including Mr. Kast, openly embrace U.S. President Donald Trump and his populist agenda and anti-migrant rhetoric.

“He’s saying things that people want to say, and doing things they may have thought they couldn’t for politically correct reasons,” said Nicolás Saldias, senior Latin America analyst at the U.K.-based Economist Intelligence Unit.

Mr. Kast’s success in running on an anti-immigration platform also shows how Venezuela’s collapse over the past 15 years – with nearly 8 million people fleeing the country and settling along the length of South America – upended regional politics.

“All these right-wing politicians have aligned their discourse, especially in the last two or three years in South America – Peru, Chile, Argentina and Ecuador – to the migration issue,” said Father José Luis Gordillo, executive director of Jesuit Migration Service in Peru.

Open this photo in gallery:

Immigrants are often blamed for “a notable increase in crime and violence,” he added. “But this is also related to other underlying problems in our countries.”

Crime in Chile has soared over the past decade, with the homicide rate doubling to six for every 100,000 inhabitants. It coincided with migration from Venezuela and the arrival of gangs, among them Tren de Aragua, which have carried out crimes including extortion and kidnapping, along with atrocities such as dismembering corpses.

“Chile is a very safe country, but it’s less safe than before,” said Patricio Navia, a political science professor at the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago. He added: “It’s not only economic worries or fears about crime, but also the perception that migrants came to change the Chilean way of life.”

A recent survey from polling firm Cadem found that 81 per cent of Chileans back the expulsion of irregular migrants, while 74 per cent favour incarceration for those who enter the country illegally.

Even some Venezuelans with permanent resident status opted for Mr. Kast.

“We need an iron fist,” said Edwin Arrieta, a Venezuelan immigrant and engineer who arrived in Chile 10 years ago and was eligible to vote. “The last government didn’t do anything.”

Non-governmental groups working with migrants say images of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in the United States have stoked disquiet among some immigrants in Chile – and provoked calls for similar enforcement in South America.

“There are people who wish we had a police like that in Chile,” said Karla Nowajewski, a project co-ordinator with the Chilean Catholic Migration Institute.

People say, “Look at how Donald Trump does it. It’s fantastic,” she added.

The customs of newcomers from different backgrounds – such as Haitians speaking Creole, or Venezuelans preferring loud music – have clashed with local sensibilities. And Chileans bristle at seeing migrants take their children to beg in the streets.

“It’s a strong culture shock that reinforces the idea that they’re the visitors. They’re arriving so they’re the ones who have to adapt,” Ms. Nowajewski said. “There’s also a political aspect: an absence of the state and public policies.”

Migration authorities are overwhelmed and initiatives for integrating newcomers are often lacking, according to non-government groups working with the immigrant population. Immigrants without legal status can access public health services, causing waiting lists to swell. Housing and rental prices have also surged.

“Almost all my friends voted for Kast out of fear of migration,” said María González, director of Fundación Bienvenido Hermano, a foundation working with Haitian migrants.

She criticized local media for stoking the flames, and estimated that coverage of high-impact crimes has dropped by more than half since Mr. Kast’s election.

“Every time something terrible happens and a Venezuelan is involved, they pile on both the Venezuelan and the foreign criminal,” she said.

How quickly Mr. Kast can enact his promises to evict immigrants – if at all – remains an open question. But the Port-au-Prince camp has received an eviction notice. And a last-minute immigration amnesty from the government of outgoing President Gabriel Boric appears unlikely.

“Much of Chile is angry about migration” owing to perceptions of strained social services, said Ana María Carvajal, a Catholic nun attending to the camp in Curicó.

But she pointed to Chile’s declining birth rate – now the lowest in the hemisphere – as a larger threat to the country’s way of life. “Some schools rely on migrant children” and would otherwise close, she said. “There are many false accusations causing harm.”