From Buenos Aires, after meeting this Tuesday at the Casa Rosada Javier Milei, the elected president of Chile, the Republican José Antonio Kast, detailed several lines on which he intends to advance before he takes office on March 11, 2026, replacing the leftist Gabriel Boric. Among them, he warned fugitives that they must surrender because “conditions will change,” and civil servants “who bring no benefit to the Chileans” to abandon their functions and “not expose themselves to being identified in the eyes of the public.” He also announced that he had held discussions with several leaders, notably those of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Argentina – he has not yet spoken with that of Paraguay – to coordinate and be able to manage a humanitarian corridor for the return of irregular migrants.
During the campaign, with 16 days left for the second round of the presidential election which took place this Sunday, Kast threatened to expel the more than 300,000 irregular migrants who are in Chile, and gave them a deadline to leave the country, counting the remaining days to reach La Moneda. This Tuesday he reiterated his intentions, but declared, due to the high expectations that the process arouses among a good part of his voters, that it will not be so fast because they are not capable of “making magic”. However, he added, he and his team have been “very clear in stating the time remaining” until he is sworn in as president.
“We never said that on day one we could deport more than 300,000 people or more, because it is obvious that we do not have the capacity to do that,” he said. “That’s why the invitation is that if someone wants to return to Chile and is in an irregular situation, they must take all their belongings, leave and then ask to re-enter but with all the papers in order, with their contract, with their return ticket, if applicable.” But, he added, “if you don’t do it, at some point you will encounter an authority. It could be in a traffic stop, in a health or educational institution. And the day you have to appear before a state authority, at that moment we will tell you: you must leave. The difference is that this person will never enter Chile again. This is a notice so that they can take the appropriate measures.”
The Republican also said he hoped that the Boric government “does what we did in one day, that is, talking with the presidents of the different South American countries,” because “all of them are clearly aware that the situation in Venezuela is unacceptable and impossible to maintain.” “President Boric is well disposed,” he said, but added that it was necessary for his Chancellor and his Minister of Security, in addition to those of the Treasury and the Economy, to present solutions to him.
In his press release, before his meeting with the Argentine businessmen, Kast said the meeting with Milei aimed to strengthen trade and economic relations with Argentina “in a way never seen before.” And he added that both also spoke about security and migration, two situations that “seriously affected” Chile. “A nation,” he described, “that had a significant level of development that made it attractive to many people fleeing countries that destroyed their economies,” which is why, he noted, migration from Venezuela was very high. But, he continued, “when you receive a migration that exceeds 11% or 12% of the migrant population, it does a lot of damage to the inhabitants of the country and ends up doing a lot of damage to the immigrants as well (…). Unfortunately, many of these people entered through the window and not through the door.”
Public officials and fugitives
The founder of the Chilean Republican Party also took advantage of the platform in Argentina to send a message both to fugitives from justice and to people “who abuse public office”, and stressed that “they must take into account that conditions will change”.
“We tell the fugitives: if they do not surrender before I take office, and we have to find them and spend resources for them to serve the sentence, which is already established, everything we spend is to their detriment, because they will not have any benefits in prison. We warn them,” he said. And he announced that to do this, they would favor legal changes to the prison system, “but be clear: there is no possibility that they will be rehabilitated if they do not surrender.”
Kast added that “in the case of so-called public officials who hold positions and do not bring any benefit to the Chileans, we tell them that they must leave the government so that they do not expose themselves to being identified in public opinion as people who do nothing.” “If there is someone who is just reporting and has not improved anyone’s quality of life, we are only going to tell the citizens: ‘Look, this man has been here for three years reporting and I have never generated a peso for you, and all your taxes generate his salary. He will see what he wants to do.’
Cast
Kast’s visit to Argentina comes 48 hours before the election, and is the first time a president-elect, who has not yet held office, has flown to meet with another president. In any case, his proximity and his friendship with the libertarian are known.
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