Continuity or change? Immigration policy in Chile
Date
2020-01-10
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Abstract
Since the return to democracy in the 1990s, Chile has become a destination for immigrants from South American countries. Responding to increases in immigration, governments have enacted a series of policies aimed mainly at social assistance and regularization for immigrants. These policies, however, have been adopted without repealing Decree-Law 1094 of 1975 (DL 1094), Chile’s law on immigration, created by presidential decree during the military government of Augusto Pinochet. Far from managing immigration and the integration of immigrants into Chilean society, DL 1094 was conceived as an instrument to securitize immigration policy and keep foreigners out. This dissertation addresses the question of how Chilean governments after the return to democracy have expanded the rights of immigrants when they should have been constrained by DL 1094. The study reveals that such advances have been made possible thanks to a gradual process resulting from the accumulation of small changes as policy actors find gaps and ambiguities and “build around” formal immigration institutions. The policy-making process is analyzed in three distinct venues: central government, municipal governments, and the judicial branch. The study reveals first, that while actors in these three venues have no formal authority over immigration policy, they have acquired new responsibilities and created policies that effectively put boundaries around DL 1094; second, actors recruited into this policy area employ frames that discuss immigration policy in depoliticized ways, arising from each group of actors’ particular venue; and third, this study finds that actors advance policies without dismantling the existing rules, but instead bypass, reinterpret, and build around them.
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Chile, Latin American politics, immigration policy, institutionalism
Citation
Pando Burciaga, E. (2020). Continuity or change? Immigration policy in Chile (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.