Chile expelled 55 Venezuelans in another controversial procedure – telam

Piera government intends to deport around 1,500 foreigners this year

The Chilean government this Sunday expelled 55 Venezuelans by air, whom it accused of having entered illegally and of more serious crimes, in a procedure that has been questioned by organizations helping immigrants.

Investigative Police (PDI) transferred Venezuelans in five buses to Iquique airport -about 2,400 kilometers north of Santiago-, vdressed in white hooded rompers and masks, handcuffed and each accompanied by an agent.

There, they boarded a plane bound for Caracas, according to images provided by the Tarapac regional government and cited by the AFP news agency.

The procedure was similar to that used last February, when 138 immigrants were expelled, the majority of Venezuelans and Colombians but also Peruvians and Bolivians.

Criticisms from humanitarian organizations that international treaties for the protection of refugees are violated are also similar.

“This is the first of the flights contracted by the Under-Secretary of the Interior and the Directorate of Foreigners and Migration to materialize expulsions, whether judicial or administrative,” said the Under-Secretary to the interior, Juan Francisco Galli, at a press conference.

The official specifies that “in this case there are 55 foreign nationals ”, 40 of whom were deported for entering Chile through prohibited stages and the remaining 15 for crimes such as theft and smuggling of migrants or drugs.

With this new process of deportations, the government of President Sébastin Piera intends to deport some 1,500 foreigners this year, for whom it has leased 15 commercial planes which will perform as many flights.

So far this year, 200 foreigners have already been deported in air force planes, in operations that will continue alongside the deportation process that began today, Galli said. .

More, Last year, 1,365 foreigners were deported, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.

Humanitarian organizations have denounced that these procedures violate the rights of immigrants because their documents are confiscated, their access to lawyers is prevented and the arrest violates the brand new migration law, in force since last Tuesday.

This rule establishes that those who entered with a passport or ID before March 18, 2020 can obtain a visa.

He also considers that Those who entered through unauthorized stages have a 180-day deadline to leave the country and go to a Chilean consulate abroad to apply for a visa. and, if granted, they can come back.

“It is not understood that at the same time as the law authorizes the regularization of these people, they are expelled without giving them the possibility of benefiting from this process,” said the Jesuit Migrant Service.

Last January, more than 3,800 foreigners, mostly Venezuelans, entered the Chile-Bolivia border irregularly, and four Venezuelans and one Colombian died in the attempt, according to official data.