"Chile is not used to black immigrants. People wonder why there are so many Haitians, they think we're going to change the country. And nobody wonders if this change could be for the good."
Paula Molina
"Chile is not used to black immigrants. People wonder why there are so many Haitians, they think we're going to change the country. And nobody wonders if this change could be for the good."
This is the opinion of Wadner Maignan, a Haitian who came to Chile on a university exchange and currently works as an intercultural mediator at the Jesuit Migrant Service, a foundation that helps migrants from his country.
Maignan denounces that discrimination has increased as Afro-Caribbean immigration has grown.
The same discrimination that experts and representatives of the Haitian community are attacking in the new draft migration law announced by the president, Sebastián Piñera, along with other administrative measures.
With only seven days' notice, the Chilean president said that from April 16, those coming from Haiti must apply at the Chilean consulate in their country for a tourist visa that will last 30 days, "without the purpose of immigration, residence or the development of paid activities".
Those from the Caribbean country who wish to work or seek humanitarian aid must opt for a special visa.
The measure contrasts with the announcements regarding Venezuela, where a special "democratic accountability" visa could be processed, which could be extended to one year, extendable to two.
In a Facebook Live lasting just over 13 minutes, President Sebastián Piñera explained the spirit of the measures a day after the announcement.
"We can't allow people to keep coming to Chile, in numbers of hundreds of thousands, people who start by not respecting our Migration Law, because they come pretending to be tourists but they're not tourists, and many times they're abused and exploited by real mafias of people traffickers," said the president.
Until now, the law has allowed people to enter Haiti on a tourist visa, after which new arrivals can opt for a temporary residence visa, a work visa or a student visa.
From tourists to residents
Recent migration to Chile from Haiti and Venezuela has grown significantly in recent years.
According to the most recent official figures, migrants who entered the South American country as tourists and then applied for another type of visa grew by 26,858 people among Haitians (from 8,419 to 35,277) and by 21,250 people among Venezolans (from 9,501 to 30,751) between 2015 and 2016.
The figures are very similar and exceed the growth in this item of the two main groups of immigrants in the country: those from Peru, whose applications fell from 29,980 to 28,558, and those from Colombia, which increased from 20,145 to 28,361 over the same period.
On Venezuela, Piñera announced that the "democratic accountability target" takes into account "the serious democratic crisis that Venezuela is going through, a country that has taken in many Chileans seeking refuge at its borders".
After Augusto Pinochet's military coup on September 11, 1973, an estimated 200,000 people left Chile in search of other countries.
The number of Chileans in Venezuela grew from 3,000 in 1971 to 24,000 in 1980.
The writer Isabel Allende, the former director of the Catholic University of Chile, Fernando Castillo Velasco, and the former minister and politician Sergio Bitar are among those who have been praised in the country.
Although many of these Chileans represent different ideas to those of the center-right coalition that now supports Piñera, the president valued Venezuela's historic gesture when it announced the visas.
He has also been one of the regional leaders who has had the most contact with the Venezuelan opposition.
In 2015, he intended to visit President Leopoldo López and, having just taken office, reiterated his commitment to "the suffering and pain of the Venezuelan people".
And Haiti?
According to the Chilean Investigations Police (PDI), the number of Haitian migrants experienced an explosive increase during 2017, reaching 100,000.
Many of the migrants arrived in the country via the LAW airline, which has covered the direct route between Puerto Príncipe and Santiago since the end of 2016.
Despite the fact that passengers paid for return tickets, the number of people boarding for the return journey was lower than the number arriving.
During the first week of March, the IDP denied entry to Chile to 62 Haitians. In response to a request to the courts, the Chilean Supreme Court ruled in favor of the migrants, arguing that they had been asked for a background contradictory to the tourist status they claimed when they arrived in the country.
Faced with the new law, migration experts have criticized Chile for giving this "special" treatment to Haiti and warn that it will only increase illegal migration.
The government replies that what is being sought is to "put the house in order" and that, according to its figures, 98% of the Haitians who enter Chile as tourists end up in the country requesting a temporary visa.
"Chile used to receive immigrants who came from Europe to do business. Then more people from Latin America and the Caribbean arrived. There is a Haitian migration flow, and it's black. And for some time now, the issue of color has been a global issue, and there is a lot of racism", concludes Wadner Maigman.
Meanwhile, dozens of immigrants have gathered at the doors of the Chilean police to take advantage of another of the elements announced by Piñera: a decree by which foreigners who have entered before April 8 through unauthorized routes and have no criminal record, will be able to regularize their papers within 90 days.
For them, time is running against them in Chile.
Source: BBC – 16/04/2018
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