Kast puts the brakes on mass immigrant regularization in Chile
"We are not going to have mass regularization like what was proposed in Boric's government," assured Chilean Migration Service Director Frank Sauerbaum.
Kast during a campaign event in Temuco/ Eitan Abramovich
The new government under José Antonio Kast stopped the regularization of 182,000 immigrants in Chile, pushed by the previous administration of leftist Gabriel Boric, the Chilean Migration Service told AFP on Monday.
According to a statement sent to the news agency, President Boric's government had decreed to regularize some 182,000 people who participated in a process of registering immigrants who entered the country irregularly.
"We are not going to have mass regularization like what was proposed in Boric's government," assured Chilean Migration Service Director Frank Sauerbaum.
"6,000 people out of the 182,000 have already committed a crime"
The authority added that "fortunately" the decree "was not carried out, because today we have learned that 6,000 people of the 182,000 already committed a crime."
Kast promised to promote the expulsion of the almost 337,000 irregular immigrants, mostly Venezuelans, currently living in Chile, according to official figures.
Two bills aimed at curbing immigration
His government also announced the submission of two bills also aimed at curbing immigration.
One would punish those who help immigrants enter Chile irregularly, and the other would increase the criminal classification of entering the country illegally.
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