Santiago, Chile — Chilean President Jose Antonio Caste wasted no time.
A week after his inauguration, Chile’s arch-conservative president began overseeing preparations Monday to build a border wall — part of his key campaign promise to stop migrants from crossing illegally.
From Chile’s northern border region of Chacalluta, where legions of migrants have slipped across the Peruvian border into one of the region’s wealthiest nations, Cost vowed to implement his “border shield” plan. Among other steps, this includes the construction of a physical barrier along the nation’s northern border made up of trenches and fences and patrolled by drones and military forces.
So far, it doesn’t seem like much. A single bulldozer could be seen digging through the desert to carve out a trench on Monday.
But Cost assured the public that “this is a milestone for all Chileans.”
“We have taken clear and concrete decisions to close our borders to illegal immigration, drug trafficking and organized crime,” he said. “We want to implement this without any delay.”
Echoing the political approach of his ally, US President Donald Trump, Kast used emergency powers in his first days in office to issue half a dozen orders aimed at increasing border security and deporting foreigners who entered the country illegally.
Chile’s foreign population will double between 2017 and 2024. An estimated 300,000 foreigners without proper documentation are now believed to be living in the country, most of them Venezuelans.
Along with families fleeing political persecution and an economic downturn, foreign criminal gangs from Venezuela and elsewhere have settled in Chile in recent years. While homicide rates in Chile are still among the lowest in the region, unprecedented carjackings, kidnappings and contract killings in the stable nation have filled local media and spread fear, leading many Chileans to blame the new arrivals.
Caste’s rise marks Chile’s extreme rightward turn since the 1990s, when the country restored democracy after 17 years of brutal military rule under General Augusto Pinochet — a leader Caste campaigned in his youth.
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(tags to translate)democracy
