Chile’s far-right candidate says migrants must pay for their own deportation

José Antonio Kast, Chile’s far-right presidential frontrunner, says that, if elected, he would force expelled migrants to pay for their own deportation.

Kast, who is on his third bid for president, is polling in second place, behind left-wing candidate Jeannette Jara ahead of the first round of the election on November 16.

But all polls show Kast easily defeating Jara, if the election goes to a second round in December.

In a TV debate with the seven other candidates, Kast reiterated his promise to deport all undocumented migrants.

"We will invite them to leave the country," he said, adding that they would be required to "pay their ticket out of Chile.”

Chile's immigrant population has grown exponentially in recent years. The country is now home to an estimated 30,000 undocumented migrants, mostly from Venezuela.

Foreign crime gangs, particularly from Venezuela, are who many Chileans blame for the rise in violent crime which has caused voters to shift sharply to the right.

The candidate has also pledged to build a Donald Trump-style border wall along Chile's desert frontier with Bolivia to block undocumented migrants.

The 59-year-old father of nine won the first round of the 2021 presidential election but lost the run-off to left-wing former student leader Gabriel Boric, who is prohibited by the constitution from running for a second consecutive term.

In the 2021 election, Kast campaigned as an ultraconservative, threatening to close the Women's Affairs Minister and to revoke Chileans' already very limited rights to abortion.

During this campaign, he has mostly stirred away from social issues but stated on Sunday that "should have the right to know" if their daughters took the morning-after contraception pill.

Jara, a Communist former labour minister running for Boric's current left-wing coalition, said her strategy to combat organised crime would include ending banking secrecy.

The 51-year-old has downplayed her Communist background during the campaign in her attempt to attract voters.

A Cadem poll released Sunday showed her with 27 percent of support in first-round voting intentions, leading Kast with 20 percent and libertarian candidate Johannes Kaiser with 14 percent.

Conservative ex-mayor Evelyn Matthei is running in fourth.

The poll showed Kast, Matthei and Kaiser all defeating Jara in a run-off.

– TIMES/AFP