With the massive arrival of Venezuelans fleeing the disastrous humanitarian situation in their country, Chile faces an unprecedented migration crisis, on xenophobia background.
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“It’s enough. More offender immigrants. Closing borders.” Collected behind a long black banner, several thousand people demonstrated Sunday, January 30 in Iquique, in northern Chile. This coastal city has become, since 2020, a transit point for Venezuelan migrants crossing on foot, irregularly, the border between Chile from Bolivia. In the absence of reception structures, they camp on the beach or in the street, under conditions of great precariousness, after a growing migratory path.
On the sidelines of the gathering, protesters took place in a shelter of migrants – absent during the incident – at the rate of xenophobic cries, according to BBC Mundo. Images from T13 Chilean television showed police officers to protect a migrant sitting on the beach. A Venezuelan was struck by protesters.
Monday 31 January, again, the city was marked by events: truckers and taxi drivers blocked road access to protest crime and immigration. In September 2021, already, enamelled demonstrations of racist violence and insults had shocked the opinion.
police officers assaulted by migrants
This new gathering follows the aggression of police officers from Iquique by Venezuelan migrants, Tuesday, January 25th. Symptom of the electric climate surrounding the migration crisis, which could have been just a variety of local was quickly relayed, pushing the elected president, Gabriel Boric (left), to speak the day after the aggression “It’s unacceptable,” he said, ensuring “eradicate delinquency and Narco [traffic] streets”. The outgoing government of Sebastian Piñera (right) announced the expulsion of migrants accused of aggression.
In parallel, the prosecutor of the Tarapaca region (including the capital is the capital) unveiled, Friday, January 28, the figures of the delinquency of 2021, which show an increase of 183% of the homicides, 42% of the traffic and 501% of migrant trafficking. During the presentation, the rise of delinquency was associated with immigration: “the rise of offenses associated with organized crime (…) is aggravated by permeability [of the frontiers, promoting a massive increase in irregular migration. “
“For a year about, there is a thrust of xenophobia, with a tendency to bind immigration delinquency, including Venezuelan,” Note Patricia Rojas, President of the Venezuelan Association in Chile, who promotes the Rights of migrants. “The demonstrations against delinquency are legitimate and the city of Iquique is totally overwhelmed,” she complete. The Jesuit migrant service (sjm) has peeled the official figures: “There is no evidence that the increase in migrants residing in Chile is associated with an increase in offenses,” states a report from September 2020. In July 2020. , foreigners serving a prison sentence accounted for 6% of the prison population. With about 1.5 million residents from another country, for 19 million people, they represent nearly 8% of the Chilean population. “99.8% of migrants present in Chile are not in prison,” calculates the report.
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