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The closure of borders and the pandemic seem not to have modified the income of foreigners through unauthorized steps. An analysis of the Jesuit Migrant Service (SJM), based on information requested from the PDI via the Transparency Law, indicates that during the first semester of this year, in the period from January to July, 3,949 entries were registered for non-authorized steps . The figure corresponds to half of the income there was last year, when 8,048 were registered.
According to those same statistics, Most of the people who entered the country this way are Venezuelans. 2,101 citizens of this nationality entered; then they are followed by 617 Haitians, 358 Colombians, 267 Bolivians and 264 Cubans, among others.
According to the same SJM analysis, income from non-authorized steps has been increasing in recent years. In fact, when considering the last 11 years, it is concluded that 57% of those who arrived in the country through this route are concentrated in the recent three, that is, in the 2018-2020 period.
“The increase in income from non-authorized steps is not something of the last few months. It has been occurring with special intensity in recent years, as a result of consular visas to countries such as Haiti and Venezuela. This reality cannot be ignored at the moment of legislating: if we only put up barriers, irregular income will continue to increase ”, assures the national director of incidence and studies of SJM, Juan Pablo Ramaciotti.
This, he adds, raises the need to “seek a balance that allows ordering migration and establishing realistic channels of regular entry into the country. If not, we can turn our immigration reality into one similar to that of the United States, with high rates of irregularity ”.
The head of the Department of Immigration and Migration (DEM), Álvaro Bellolio, assures that the income from non-authorized steps was going down until opposition senators entered some indications to the migration project that is being discussed in the Upper House. “Compared to the previous year, clandestine income had decreased considerably this year until the moment in which the Senate, in the Finance Committee, proposes and approves an indication that promises a visa to all clandestine income between now and the enactment of the law and 90 days later ”, says Bellolio, referring to the bill that will be voted on this Wednesday.
The head of the DEM adds that they have screenshots and videos where the migrants “passed the data”, so, he says, a “call effect” is generated. Bellolio concludes that “August is going to be, by far, the month with the most clandestine income.”
The authority adds that the visas promoted by the government have made it possible to reduce this type of income: “If the visa had not been given to consult Venezuelan and Haitian citizens on tourism, approximately 750,000 more migrants would have arrived.”
Bellolio acknowledges that there is tension with some actors regarding restrictions to regularize migration, but states that this is vital to have an orderly policy: “If there were no restriction, there would be no clandestine entry, that is true, but that is clearly not consider the number of people who actually enter Chile as tourists and then remain irregular, generating other types of problems ”.
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