Chile: Chilling With Kindness

CHILE

Chilling with Kindness

Chile sent a planeload of Haitians back to their home country in a so-called “humanitarian” gesture that migrant groups blasted as “forced deportation.”

The first so-called “humanitarian flight” returned 176 migrants to the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince on Wednesday, Reuters reported. A total of 1,087 people have signed up for the return program, the Chilean interior ministry said in a statement.

Part of President Sebastian Pinera’s drive to reduce the number of migrants in Chile, the scheme requires participants to sign a declaration that they will not return for nine years and asks that they take their immediate family members with them.

The Chilean government claims that around 150,000 Haitians have immigrated to Chile in the past two years, in some cases lured by false promises from traffickers. But activists for migrant rights said the flights are essentially “enforced deportations” – sending people back to desperate conditions in Haiti.

Under United Nations policy, “assisted voluntary returns” are an acceptable response to migration-related crises, according to Chile’s interior ministry.