Chilean right-wing presidential frontrunner José Antonio Kast said on Sunday, October 26th that if elected he would force expelled migrants to pay for their own deportation.
Kast, who is on his third bid for the highest office, is polling in second place behind left-wing candidate Jeannette Jara ahead of the first round of the election on November 16th.
But all polls show Kast easily defeating Jara if, as expected, the election goes to a second round in December.
In a TV debate with the seven other candidates, Kast repeated his pledge to deport all undocumented migrants.
“We will invite them to leave the country,” he said, adding that they would all be required to “pay their ticket out of Chile.”
Chile’s immigrant population has grown exponentially in recent years.
The South American country is now home to an estimated 330,000 undocumented migrants, mostly from Venezuela.
Many Chileans blame foreign crime gangs, particularly from Venezuela, for a rise in violent crime which has caused voters to lurch to the right.
Kast has vowed to build a Donald Trump-inspired border wall along Chile’s desert frontier with Bolivia to keep out undocumented migrants.
