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After seven and a half years of complex processing, Congress passed the Immigration and Alien Law, controversial initiative promoted by the current Executive since the first administration of Sebastián Piñera, to update or replace the regulations dating from 1975 -at the dawn of the dictatorship-.
The The Senate approved this Thursday, in the last step, by 38 votes in favor and two against, the report of the mixed commission -approved yesterday in the Lower House-, which was constituted at the beginning of November after the deputies in October, although they gave the go-ahead to almost the entire bill, rejected a dozen modifications made by the Upper House.
The discussion during this year, of almost 200 articles, was also developed with warnings from the Government itself about a possible presidential veto if it did not advance as La Moneda wanted and was approved with indications from the opposition – such as those that, according to the right, allowed a “work tourism visa” or the “regularization in 90 days”, ideas that did not prosper.
The new law creates a National Migration Service, which will have various responsibilities; It also focuses on those foreign citizens who enter through authorized steps, which is questioned by experts and organizations that accuse that “it does not take charge” of those who enter through clandestine places.
✅ To Law | Senate approves the report of the Mixed Commission of the bill on migration and foreigners. pic.twitter.com/x8xbfZfjoL
– SenadoChile (@Senado_Chile) December 3, 2020
REGULARIZATION PROCESS FOR EMPLOYEES, BY ENABLED STEPS, PRIOR TO THE CLOSURE OF BORDERS
In this last procedure, both cameras endorsed, among other points, a process so that those who have entered the country through steps enabled prior to March 18, 2020 -when Chile closed its borders due to the pandemic- and are in an irregular migratory situation can, within a period of 180 days counted from the publication of the law, apply for a visa of temporary residence without being administratively sanctioned.
But the visa will only be granted to all those who have no criminal record; and once the application is submitted, they will be granted a temporary permit to carry out paid activities during the time it takes to process them.
“Very different” is the case of “those people who have entered through unauthorized steps: they will not be able to regularize their immigration status in Chile, and they will have to leave to (later) enter our country regularly,” explained the undersecretary inland, Juan Francisco Galli.
However, there is criticism because the process excludes those who entered irregularly, a group on which part of the debate was focused.
The UDI Senator Luz Ebensperger defended that restriction, since “for those who come respecting our laws, which is the first obligation of a migrant, it would be a very bad sign to establish an article that allows to regularize those migrants who have not precisely complied with the law of the host country.”
The Frente Amplio, for its part, evaluates a request to the Constitutional Court: Deputy Catalina Pérez (RD) yesterday made constitutionality reservation, and now they must collect the signatures to be able to bring the text to that instance.
Senator Juan Ignacio Latorre (RD) criticized today that “Certain aspects of the law promoted by the Government are not moving in the right directionQuite the contrary, one of the proposed norms represents serious restrictions on the fundamental rights of migrants, including children and adolescents: it must be remembered that this is a regulation for normal times and for the future“.
CONCERN ABOUT THE JESUITE SERVICE TO MIGRANTS FOR UNACCOMPANIED MINORS
Another point of the law proposes the non-criminalization of clandestine income, through a facilitation of administrative expulsions. Which worries organizations like the Jesuit Migrant Service, which points out that unaccompanied minors are arriving, which is why it considers it serious for Chile to legislate that they be expelled or returned.
“We are concerned about the situation of people entering through unauthorized steps; the administrative measures adopted by the Government have had a direct consequence. The law will bring an extraordinary regularization that is not taken over by this group, and which is also a direct consequence of the pandemic, that meant the closing of the borders, and it is a reality. It seems to us that we should take care of those people who had no other way to enter the country, “said Macarena Rodríguez, from the SJM board.
“Too we are concerned about the situation of unaccompanied or unauthorized children and adolescents “, alerted.
📌 Migration and Immigration: report of the Mixed Commission is dispatched to law.
The Senate backed the report, which contains agreements on complementary protection, migrant women, mandatory prohibitions, among other aspects. Https://t.co/SuClO5YwRB pic.twitter.com/NojVixqrGD
– SenadoChile (@Senado_Chile) December 3, 2020
SPECIAL TREATMENT FOR WOMEN VICTIMS OF VIF OR TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS
In its process prior to the mixed commission, the Executive had the deputies reject the proposal that ensured in Chile a special treatment of the public apparatus to pregnant foreign women or victims of migrant trafficking or intrafamily violence.
However, the proposal was answered in the mixed commission and endorsed in the law office: thus things, Migrant women will have access to all the institutions and mechanisms that protect their well-being.
Women pregnant women, victims of human trafficking, or of gender or intra-family violence, or object of migrant smuggling, will receive special treatment by the State: by virtue of this, the National Migration Service may deliver a visa that regulates their permanence, according to the well-founded antecedents required from competent bodies.
COMPLEMENTARY PROTECTION FOR REFUGE SEEKERS
On the other hand, Asylum seekers who are not recognized as such, may be granted additional protection ex officio or upon request. on the part of the authority provided for in Law No. 20,430 -on refugee protection- and in accordance with the requirements and visas established for this purpose by the National Policy on Migration and Aliens, which will also establish the grounds for cessation of said complementary protection.
In this framework, no foreigner with complementary protection may be expelled or returned to the country where their right to life, physical integrity or personal liberty is at risk of being violated because of their race or ethnicity, nationality, religion or belief, condition. social, ideology or political opinion, sexual orientation or gender identity.
But nevertheless, foreigners who have been convicted of a crime or simple crime in Chile or abroad may not invoke the benefits of this provision; or with respect to which there are well-founded reasons that he has committed a crime against peace, war, or any other crime against humanity defined in an international instrument, ratified by Chile; or who has performed acts contrary to the principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter; or that it is considered, for well-founded reasons, as a danger to the security of the country where it is located.
DEADLINES TO GRANT, EXTEND OR REVOKE RESIDENCE PERMITS
Regarding the granting, extension and revocation, residents whose permit has expired may request its extension within a period of nine months from its expiration, in any case having to pay the corresponding fines. In this case, the National Migration Service will accept the application for processing, establishing in the respective ruling the sanction that is imposed.
Applications made within a period of six months from the expiration of the previous residence permit will be subject to a maximum penalty of a fine with a reduction provided by law.
However, the expulsion of the resident with expired permit will not proceed until the expiration of the period indicated in the law.
PROHIBITIONS OF ENTRY TO THE COUNTRY
On mandatory prohibitions, the law prohibits entry to foreigners who have been convicted in Chile or abroad, or are in pending legal proceedings reported abroad by the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) or by the justice agencies with which Chile has agreements, for different crimes.
The illicit indicated are drug or arms trafficking, money laundering, smuggling of migrants or human trafficking, It hurts humanity, genocide, torture, terrorism, homicide, femicide, parricide, infanticide, kidnapping, child abduction or abduction Considering what is prescribed in article 141, fifth paragraph and final paragraph of the Penal Code, robbery with intimidation or violence, robbery with homicide and robbery with rape.
Others are the commercialization, production, import, export, distribution, diffusion, acquisition, storage or exhibition of pornographic material, whatever its medium, where minors are used; those contemplated in paragraphs V and VI of Title 7 and in articles 395, 396 and 397 numeral 1, all of Book II of the Penal Code.
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