LIMA: Peru’s government declared a state of emergency at its southern border with Chile on Friday, expecting an influx of people trying to flee far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast’s potential presidency.
Under the decree, Peru’s military will reinforce border control in the southern Tacna region for 60 days, past Chile’s December 14 run-off election, in which immigration hard-liner Kast is facing off against left-wing candidate Jeannette Jara.
The state of emergency will also serve “to address crime and other situations of violence” in the border area.
“The Peruvian National Police will maintain control of internal order, with support from the Armed Forces,” according to the order.
Peru’s President Jose Jeri had announced earlier on Friday that such an action was forthcoming, after dozens of migrants were reported to be stuck at the Chile-Peru border.
A video posted by the Chilean governor of the Arica border region, around 2,200 kilometers north of Santiago, showed dozens of people attempting to exit from Chile at the Chacalluta-Santa Rosa border crossing.
A Venezuelan migrant told the online news outlet The Clinic that the group was trying to leave Chile “for fear that they remove us by force” if Kast becomes the next president.
“They don’t want to let us into Peru,” the migrant, who preferred to remain anonymous, said.
The Peruvian station Radio Tacna broadcast images of migrants carrying children on the highway near the border crossing.
‘103 days left’
Peru is both a source of, and country of transit for, migrants fleeing other parts of Latin America to Chile, one of the region’s most prosperous and stable nations.
The reverse migration trend comes just over two weeks before the Chilean presidential run-off, in which Kast is favored to win.
Kast, a 59-year-old ex-MP on his third run for president, has given the country’s around 330,000 undocumented migrants an ultimatum to self-deport or be thrown out and lose everything if he takes office.
He blames undocumented migration for a surge in violent crime over the past decade.
“To undocumented immigrants in Chile, I say you have 103 days left to leave our country voluntarily,” Kast said in a video posted on Friday on his social media.
He was referring to March 11, the date when the successor of outgoing center-left President Gabriel Boric, is sworn in.
Peru’s Foreign Minister Hugo de Zela told a press conference Friday evening that the issue will be addressed via a “binational migration cooperation committee” beginning next week.
However, he stressed that Peru will not accept any more undocumented migrants.
Since 2015, more than 1.5 million Venezuelans have arrived in the country, fleeing a humanitarian and political crisis.
“We will not allow irregular migration. We do not have the conditions or capacity to receive more migrants,” he said.