anita bacaJanuary 19, 2022Matias DelacroixComment

Migrants seek better life in Chile

anita bacaJanuary 19, 2022Matias DelacroixComment

A merciless sun seared the migrants as they walked through one of the driest places in the world, trying to illegally cross the border from Bolivia into Chile.

Many of those who arrive on foot braving the Atacama Desert are Venezuelans looking for a better life.

Virginia Carrasco, a 30-year-old business administrator, traversed four countries in six days, taking eight buses, and a boat, crossed the Andean Plateau and entered into Chile with her three children — 11 and 8 years old, and a baby of six months.

“In Venezuela’s hospitals you get nothing,” she said, as she dragged a cart filled with suitcases, bags and backpacks. “There are people who have died because they cannot get medicine or doctors. I expect a better quality of life for my children in Chile, that’s why I came here.”

The father of her two older children has permanent residency in Chile. He worked to get them visas through official channels, but was denied.

Venezuelan migrants cross into Chile from the Bolivian border near Colchane, Chile, Dec. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Migrants’ squatter homes stand in La Mula neighborhood of Alto Hospicio, Chile, Dec. 12, 2021. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Venezuelan migrant Magdelis Alejos' daughter rests on her mother after police told them to break up the camp on the shore in El Morro, Chile, Dec. 12, 2021. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

A Venezuelan migrant holds his dog as he tries to hitch a ride to Iquique, Chile, on a highway between Huara and Colchane, Chile, Dec. 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Only 14% of visas requested by Venezuelans were approved in 2021. The Comptroller's Office recently forced the Chilean Foreign Ministry to review the denials of family reunification visas for Venezuelans.

The border has been guarded for months by the police and the army, though migrants cross using different paths in the desert in plain sight. The border area was empty until few years ago. Now it looks like the transit area of a train terminal.

Once in Chilean territory, migrants are not detained. Some keep walking to the closest city while others turn themselves in to authorities so they can start a process that might help them to regularize their immigration status.

The U.N. International Organization for Migration estimates there are almost 1.7 million immigrants in Chile. In 2021 Chilean authorities registered more than 25,000 people arriving through the Atacama Desert, a significant increase compared to the 16,500 for all 2020.