This Thursday, the Government of José Antonio Kast deported to Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia the first migrants of its mandate who had committed crimes or administrative offenses in Chile, a policy that is not new and that started in previous administrations.
The flight, which departed this Thursday from the Chilean Air Force airport (Fach) in Santiago, was traveling with 40 people (17 Bolivians, four Ecuadorians and 19 Colombians) and will make stops in La Paz, Guayaquil and Bogotá.
The deportees had expulsion orders after having committed various administrative offenses or crimes, such as robbery with violence, receipt of a motor vehicle, drug trafficking, and illegal possession of weapons and ammunition, according to official data.
«We have a commitment that we are going to fulfill: to intensify and have more flights as soon as possible to be able to comply with the immigration order plan. There will also be bus departures,” the Undersecretary of the Interior, Máximo Pavez, announced without giving details about the frequency of flights or buses.
«The first expulsion flight of the previous Government was in the month of October of its first year in Government. In the middle of our second month, we already have our first flight of expellees,” he added.
During the administration of the progressive Gabriel Boric (2022-2026), more than twenty flights were carried out and nearly 4,500 people who had current expulsion orders were deported, according to the National Migration Service (Sernamin).
In 2025, the last full year of the mandate, a total of 1,117 foreigners were expelled.
According to local media, there are more than 75,000 expulsion orders pending, of which half correspond to Venezuelan citizens.
Caracas broke diplomatic relations with Chile after the 2024 elections in the Caribbean country, so right now there are no consular services and it is impossible to deport these citizens with expulsion orders.
“It is a priority to be able to have the necessary conversations (with Venezuela) and that is what the corresponding Ministry is working on to be able to open a path that allows us to expel citizens of Venezuela by air more expeditiously,” he indicated without clarifying whether there are already communications in progress.
Kast, the first far-right leader to come to power since the return to democracy, promised in his campaign a tough crackdown on crime, organized crime and irregular migration and is building a strip in the Atacama Desert, on the border with Peru and Bolivia.
In Chile, there are currently more than 330,000 foreigners in an irregular situation, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
The so-called “Border Shield Plan” of the leader of the Chilean Republican Party also includes the approval of a bill in progress to classify irregular migration as a crime and the implementation of “incentives” for foreigners in an illegal situation to leave Chile “voluntarily.”
The Undersecretary of the Interior assured this Wednesday that since Kast won the elections last December, a total of 2,180 Venezuelans have voluntarily left Chile. AND
