AMERICA/CHILE - The drama of migrants continues, amid hypocrisy, Covid and a new, more rigid law

Friday, 16 April 2021 emigration   human rights   coronavirus   local churches  

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Concepción (Agenzia Fides) - "The most painful thing of all this unfortunate situation is that the migratory process in Chile has revealed a chain of anomalous situations and the hypocrisy that sustains it. I hope that this new law will repair the pain it has caused, especially in recent years, to thousands of migrants": this is what the Archbishop of Concepción, Mgr. Fernando Chomali wrote, in a letter published by the national newspaper "El Mercurio". The text, entitled "Pure hypocrisy", sent to Agenzia Fides, addresses the situation currently experienced by thousands of migrants in the country.
The Archbishop of Concepción takes his cue from an event that happened in the Chilean capital: "A large group of migrants camped in an office in the center of Santiago, to try to 'regularize their situation' in light of the new immigration law. They were driven by despair, anguish, lack of information and fear. The scenario was grim: a gathering in the middle of a pandemic, causing more infections and more deaths. This was predictable and avoidable".
Then Mgr. Chomali describes the Chilean reality: "They let them in - we remember the planes coming from Haiti that arrived at dawn and the flow of people who arrived for long months from the north - and once they arrive here they are not offered civil or work guarantees. They are threatened with expulsion, and so they, with apparent calm, take care of the sick or the elderly that no one wants to take care of, they transport food in the rain or the infernal heat, in deplorable working conditions, poorly paid, without any kind of future and they live in crowded places, in subhuman and expensive places".
"Many of those who have worked on this long-awaited and belated law, probably have migrants who work in their homes or in the homes or businesses of people they know. Migrants must be treated as we would like them to treat us, if we were to undertake the painful experience of leaving our country".
Chile is facing the plight of migrants in a very difficult situation. Healthcare facilities are under great pressure due to the increase in Covid cases, which the vaccination campaign fails to stop especially in some cities. In addition, the hospitals are receiving all the patients who do not have Covid but other diseases, and who can now no longer delay medical assistance. Another reason for friction is given by the new migration law, which replaces the current one, one of the oldest immigration laws in Latin America, conceived in 1975 during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), when the military regime tried to limit the entry of migrants. There already seems to be controversy over the new law, because it proposes greater "rigidity" on border control and acceleration of deportations, also requiring a visa from the country of origin, in order to prevent foreigners from entering as tourists and changing their status into immigrants to be able to look for work.
The enactment of the law takes place at a time of migratory boom, especially on the northern border, between Chile and Bolivia, where in the months of February and March thousands of immigrants were registered illegally, causing the collapse of several small border towns. (CE) (Agenzia Fides, 16/4/2021)


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