KEY TAKEAWAYS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Immigration isn’t just an issue in the United States: It has sparked intense debate 5,000 miles to the south in Chile. On one hand, Chilean business leaders stress the need for more workers amid an aging population, and human rights activists demand that immigrants be treated with dignity. But on the other, opponents argue that immigration is straining social services, increasing crime and undermining national identity.
Despite vast differences between the United States and Chile — the United States’ population is 17 times larger and its per capita income nearly five times higher — the debate in both countries is remarkably similar. Has there been too much immigration too fast? Can a physical barrier — be it a ditch or a wall — make any difference? Is immigration helping or hurting the economy? Is it responsible for strains on social services? Is it changing national identity in ways that are either positive or negative? What is the answer for those already present illegally — amnesty, expulsion or the status quo?
Chile’s experience shows that the United States is hardly alone in struggling with the impacts of mass immigration from countries in the throes of economic and political crisis, but even middle-income states with fewer resources at their disposal are also being forced to look for solutions to what is becoming one of the world’s most pressing issues.
Chile has undergone a remarkable demographic shift. In 1992, foreign born persons constituted a mere 0.8 percent of its population. Chile, like its Southern Cone neighbors, Argentina and Uruguay, had a population of largely European origin, although it also has a substantial indigenous community. In addition to the descendants of the original Spanish colonists, the country experienced immigration flows, principally from Europe, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, which largely ceased after a spurt following the end of World War II.
However, Chile saw a new rise in immigration beginning in the first decade of the 21st century as its economy benefited from reforms instituted under the military regime and largely maintained by democratic successors. Immigration from Peru, Bolivia and Argentina ticked up noticeably, but the country was able to absorb these new immigrants without great difficulty. A major change began around 2014-15 when political, economic and social crises in Venezuela and Haiti spurred a massive exodus. Chile’s total foreign-born population surged to 8.7 percent according to the 2022 census.
How did this happen? What is clear is that Chile did not engage in a considered national debate over immigration policy as the surge of the last decade took place. National life was absorbed by other issues, especially how to balance economic growth with demands for greater equity. Also, Chile had successfully absorbed immigrants in the recent past, albeit at lower levels and over greater time.
Chile did not engage in a considered national debate over immigration policy as the surge of the last decade took place. National life was absorbed by other issues.
Center-left President Michelle Bachelet had positioned Chile as a “welcoming country” during her first term (2006-2010), guaranteeing health care for pregnant mothers, children and those in need of emergency services regardless of their immigration status. But during her second, non-consecutive, term (2014-2018), the Bachelet government did not make immigration policy a priority, even as the inflows grew dramatically. Limiting immigration was not part of her agenda, which stressed a strong commitment to human rights. (Indeed, Bachelet subsequently became United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.) During her administration legislation was passed clarifying procedures for obtaining refugee status; however, it was largely aimed at assuring that Chile was in compliance with relevant international conventions.
Chile had relatively loose entry requirements; visas were generally not required before persons presented themselves at airports or border posts. In 2017, the Foreign Ministry’s director general of Consular Affairs reportedly sent a memorandum to the minister of interior warning of “a massive and growing migratory flow of Haitians into Chile,” arriving on chartered aircraft purportedly for tourism, but with the intention of immigrating. However, his recommendation to impose visa requirements went unheeded.
By the end of Bachelet’s term in 2018, the wave of immigration had become a campaign issue. Center-right candidate Sebastian Piñera (running, as Bachelet had, for a second, non-consecutive term), took office after campaigning in part on the need to “clean up the house,” (i.e., to impose a more restrictive immigration policy). He imposed a strict visa requirement on entrants from Haiti. He also imposed restrictions on Venezuelan entrants, but as an opponent of President Nicolas Maduro’s regime, he allowed those fleeing oppression to obtain a “democratic responsibility visa” with longer validity. The difficulties Venezuelans faced in obtaining the necessary documentation, however, limited their ability to make use of this option.
But Piñera still had to deal with the flow of persons (including many Haitians and Venezuelans) across Chile’s land border with Bolivia. In 2021 the largely poor, indigenous border town of Colchane became a flashpoint. Protests against the influx turned violent as local residents set fire to a migrant encampment on the town square. The incident became emblematic of the stresses that uncontrolled immigration was bringing to Chile.
By the 2021 election, the issue of immigration had come to the fore. Hard-right candidate José Antonio Kast argued for excavating a ditch on the border with Bolivia to halt the inflow. (In fact, the ditch was ultimately dug during the current administration of Gabriel Boric, and a “digital wall” of mobile radar-equipped police vehicles was instituted; more recently Kast has urged the construction of a physical wall.)
Kast lost the presidential race to Gabriel Boric, a young leftist lawmaker, known for his pro-immigration stance. “I don’t have problems with immigrants without papers,” Boric stated while in Congress. “I believe we should welcome them, give them opportunities, and treat them as the equals they are.” But as president, Boric has responded to hardening public attitudes by deploying the army to northern Chile to assist police in combating both irregular migration and narcotics smuggling. Though the Chilean president has resisted calls to make irregular migration a criminal offense, he no longer welcomes those entering the country without papers. “Chile is not in any condition to accept more immigrants” from Venezuela, he stated in a September 2024 speech arguing for a political resolution to the Venezuelan crisis.
Boric’s reversal of more relaxed immigration policies reflects the Chilean public’s increasingly jaundiced view.
Boric’s reversal of more relaxed immigration policies reflects the Chilean public’s increasingly jaundiced view. In December 2024 poll, 77 percent of those surveyed saw immigration as bad for the country; 87 percent favored more restrictions; and 71 percent believed that those who had entered the country irregularly should be expelled.
The Boric government has now started repatriating immigrants who have committed crimes. As of October 2024, the National Migration Service had expelled 910 individuals to Haiti, Colombia and Bolivia in 15 highly publicized flights. It has been unable to negotiate the repatriation of Venezuelan migrants, however, given the rupture of diplomatic relations. Venezuela expelled ambassadors from seven Latin American countries, including Chile, over criticism of the Maduro regime’s refusal to permit a democratic transition.
Also, legislation has passed the lower chamber of congress adding additional grounds for the expulsion of immigrants. And Chile has recently reached an agreement with Bolivia that will allow it to expel illegal entrants found within 10 kilometers of the border although it remains to be seen to what degree will allow its actual enforcement.
The Boric administration has also announced plans for the “regularization” of immigrants without criminal records who have previously registered with the police, building on similar efforts during the Bachelet and Piñera administrations, moves the opposition has attacked as a “perdonazo” (big amnesty), which will make Chile vulnerable to irregular migration in the future.
The debate over immigration in Chile revolves around several issues — its economic effect, the demands it puts on social services, its relationship with rising crime and its impact on Chilean culture and identity. Immigration has strong defenders in the business community, which sees it as a source of manpower at a time when Chile’s population is aging and its birth rate declining to the point where it is lower even than Japan’s. Chile’s farmers have stressed the importance of immigrant labor for the country’s export-oriented agricultural sector. The World Bank calculates that Venezuelan migrants alone contributed 0.2 percent to Chile’s gross domestic product (GDP) on average between 2017 and 2023 and $117 to per capita GDP.
But immigration has been growing as Chilen economic growth — once the envy of Latin America — has sputtered. The causes are the subject of intense national debate. The right blames overregulation and the government’s anti-business bias, while the left, including President Boric himself, accuses Chilean business of ideologically based pessimism leading to under-investment.
A sluggish economy does not create a welcoming climate for immigrants, especially when they are seen as straining Chile’s fragile social safety net. Indeed there are many cases of Haitian immigrants leaving Chile, where they complain of racism and limited opportunities, and trying to reach the United States.
The government offers immigrants equal access to state-provided health and educational services on humanitarian grounds and to help integrate immigrants into national life. This has caused tension amid stubbornly long wait times for state-provided medical care. Whether immigrants really are straining social services is debatable: According to the World Bank, for every peso a Venezuelan immigrant receives in social services, he or she pays 1.62 pesos in taxes.
Chile’s rising crime rate adds to these tensions. Although studies indicate that the crime rate among immigrants remains lower than that of the general population, it has risen in recent years and immigrants are over-represented in homicides. (Immigrants are also increasingly the victims of homicides.) Although the relationship between crime and immigration is complex, the two are solidly linked in the public mind. The presence of transnational drug trafficking organizations in Chile, notably Venezuela’s “Tren de Aragua,” aggravates these negative perceptions.
Cultural frictions also contribute to anti-immigrant sentiment. While one should take Chilean claims to be the quiet, sober “English of South America” with a measure of skepticism, the fact that immigrants have brought a culture of tropical music, late night parties and informal open air markets grates on Chilean sensibilities, especially in the working class neighborhoods they now share with immigrants.
With a large immigrant population already present and with Chile’s presidential elections less than a year away, the issue is sure to remain on the front burner.
While supporters of immigration have urged Chileans to welcome the new cultural diversity, accusing the media of fomenting racism, these “quality of life” issues have acquired political salience. Draft legislation, passed in the Chamber of Deputies, would allow authorities potentially to revoke the residency of those who “prejudice coexistence in neighborhoods through repeated misconduct such as fighting, bothersome noise, or street peddling.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has made clear that he intends to significantly curb immigration, to the point of proposing mass expulsions of those present illegally. Chile’s leftist president has largely eschewed such tough talk, but public opinion has pushed him to the right. Chile’s own immigration regime has gradually become tighter, and there are some indications that immigration is beginning to decline. But with a large immigrant population already present and with Chile’s presidential elections less than a year away, the issue is sure to remain on the front burner.
Chile will have to manage immigration issues with far fewer resources than the United States and Europe. It will be worth watching and learning from its experience as the government seeks to find the right balance between incorporating migrants already within the country and controlling the ever-growing numbers pressing to enter.
Richard M. Sanders is senior fellow, Western Hemisphere at the Center for the National Interest. He is also a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. A former member of the senior foreign service of the U.S. Department of State, he served at embassies throughout Latin America and in positions in Washington dealing with the region.