Fears of crime, immigration fuel Chile’s rightward shift

Chile is considered a safer and more stable haven by many of its neighbors in the Latin American region.

But at home, that perception has crumbled as voters worried about security, immigration and crime chose José Antonio Castel as the next president.

Castel, a hardline conservative, praised Chile’s former right-wing dictator General Augusto Pinochet, whose U.S.-backed coup ushered in 17 years of military rule marked by torture, disappearances and censorship.

For Custer’s critics, Custer’s family history is troubling, including his German-born father’s membership in the Nazi Party and his brother’s service as a minister under Pinochet.

However, some of Castro’s supporters publicly defended Pinochet’s rule, arguing that Chile was more peaceful at the time.

In his first speech as president-elect, the 59-year-old pledged that his pledge to lead an “emergency government” did not mean “authoritarianism,” a nod to Chile’s history and the accusations against other right-wing leaders in the region following military crackdowns on organized crime.

Sunday’s election makes Chile the latest Latin American country to make a decisive shift from left to right, joining Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador and Panama.

Peru, Colombia and Brazil face key elections next year.

Castel’s victory joins a growing number of conservative governments that are likely to align themselves with U.S. President Donald Trump, particularly on immigration and security issues.

In some cases, such as Argentina, inflation and economic crises drove the shift. In other ways, it is a backlash against left-wing governments mired in corruption or infighting.

In Chile, immigration and crime seem to have turned the tables.

Castor promised to build a border wall and mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

At the rally, he counted down the days until the inauguration and warned those without documents to leave then if they wanted a chance to return.

His message resonates in a country with a rapidly growing foreign-born population. Government data shows that nearly 2 million non-nationals will live in Chile by 2023, a 46% increase from 2018.

The government estimates that about 336,000 undocumented immigrants live in Chile, many from Venezuela.

The pace of this change has many Chileans uneasy.

Jeremías Alonso, a Castel supporter who volunteered to mobilize young voters during the campaign, said: “Chile is not ready to receive this wave of immigrants.”

He rejected accusations from critics that Castor’s comments amounted to xenophobia.

“What Castro is saying is that foreigners should come to Chile, let them come to work, but they should enter through the door properly, not through the window,” he said, arguing that undocumented immigrants put a strain on taxpayer-funded public services.

He said his working-class community has experienced “social changes in crime, drug addiction and security brought on by irregular migration”.

Castor has blamed rising crime rates on immigrants, an allegation that has resonated politically, even though murders have declined since peaking in 2022 and some studies suggest immigrants have lower crime rates on average.

Many voters believe organized crime, drug trafficking, theft and carjackings contribute to their insecurity.

Custer’s winning message was that if immigrants obeyed the law, they would be welcomed, criminals would be locked up, and order would be restored to the streets.

Like Trump, he is expected to move quickly to demonstrate an “iron fist” approach, deploying troops to the border and possibly publicizing his crackdown via social media.

But in practice, mass evictions will be difficult.

Venezuela does not accept deportees from Chile and deportations have been limited so far.

Castel appeared to hope his comments would encourage irregular migrants to leave voluntarily. But that’s unlikely to force hundreds of thousands of people to pack their bags.

For irregular migrants already in Chile, the future feels uncertain.

Gabriel Funez, a Venezuelan waiter, moved to Chile four years ago, occasionally crossing the land border to escape the country’s “very, very bad economic situation.”

He has since submitted documents to police and immigration authorities and been issued a temporary ID card so he could pay taxes, but so far his visa request has not been responded to.

His salary is currently being deposited into a friend’s bank account. “I’m basically a ghost here,” he said.

While he fears deportation, he is more worried about rising xenophobia, which he says has increased.

“Cast expressed what many Chileans wanted to express. He was validating it,” he said.

He recalled serving diners at the restaurant where he worked who were discussing how immigrants should leave.

“It’s uncomfortable. I’m a foreigner and I hear all these super hurtful things.”

He explained that about 90 percent of the restaurant’s employees are immigrants.

As immigration becomes increasingly important to Chilean businesses, Castel is likely to face pushback from those who rely on foreign labor to run their businesses.

Carlos Alberto Cossio, a Bolivian native who has lived in Chile for 35 years, runs a business that makes and sells Bolivian savory pastries.

He said he regularly employs workers from Haiti, Colombia and Venezuela, insisting that “immigrant labor is very important.”

He explained that immigrants are eager to work and are unlikely to change jobs because they rely on their employer’s contractual visa until they obtain a permanent visa.

“Many companies, especially fruit picking companies, hire migrant workers who are not necessarily registered,” he added.

He warned that deporting unregistered workers “will affect Chile’s export economy and make raw materials more expensive.”

Mr. Cosio acknowledged that there had been some friction since large numbers of migrants arrived from Venezuela to escape the economic and political crisis there.

“Many of the customs they brought with them are incompatible with Chilean customs,” he said, lamenting that it damaged the reputation of immigrants who wanted to work and contribute.

Castor’s party lacks a majority in Congress, meaning some of his proposals, from tougher sentencing to maximum-security prisons, may require compromise and negotiation.

But for many voters, a sense of control may be as important as delivering results, as anxieties about crime, insecurity and immigration are sweeping across the continent.