Government puts the number of foreigners expelled this year at 1,874 after carrying out the tenth expulsion flight with 56 foreigners

The Government carried out its tenth expulsion flight of foreign citizens this Saturday, October 10, with a total of 56 people transferred to Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia. With this operation, the official tally of expulsions during 2026 rises to 1,874 people. The operation was carried out aboard a charter flight of Andes Línea Aérea, which took off from Arturo Merino Benítez Airport in Santiago at 1:25 a.m. and made a stopover in Iquique before continuing on to the three destination countries. Of the 56 foreigners included in the procedure, 45 were expelled through the administrative route and 11 by judicial ruling. By nationality, the group is composed of 21 Colombians, 20 Bolivians and 15 Ecuadorians. Government puts the number of foreigners expelled this year at 1,874 after carrying out the tenth expulsion flight with 56 foreigners The figures were provided by the Undersecretary of the Interior, Máximo Pavez; the national director of the National Migration Service (Sermig), Frank Sauerbaum; and the national head of Migration and International Police of the Investigative Police (PDI), Prefect Inspector Ernesto León. Pavez highlighted that the operation brings the number of expulsions during the year to 1,874, a figure that, he maintained, is equivalent to an average of close to 200 procedures per month and seven per day. The undersecretary also stated that the frequency of expulsion flights under the current administration is approximately three times higher than the monthly average of the previous government. Background of the expelled individuals Among the main grounds for the procedure is entry into the country through unauthorized crossings, a situation associated with 31 of the 56 foreigners included in the flight. The record also includes six cases linked to robbery with intimidation, five related to the drug law, four for receiving stolen motor vehicles and two for robbery with violence, in addition to other records. Prefect Inspector Ernesto León reported that among those expelled were "five individuals of interest with different police records, effectively for drug trafficking, for rape." The police chief added that one of the Colombian citizens has an arrest warrant in his country for aggravated theft. Government puts the number of foreigners expelled this year at 1,874 after carrying out the tenth expulsion flight with 56 foreigners During the presentation of results, the authorities also addressed the evolution of migration controls in the country. Between January and September 2026, 301 reports were registered directly at the border, compared to the 4,515 recorded during the same period of 2025. This represents a decrease of 93.3%, according to PDI figures. This is a different indicator from reports of entry through unauthorized crossings, which went from 16,603 to 13,626 in the comparison between both periods. In parallel, the number of migration enforcement procedures increased 24.7%, going from 1,407 between January and September 2025 to 1,755 during the same period of this year. The number of foreigners subject to enforcement also grew, going from 28,085 to 41,171 people, an increase of 46.6%. On this matter, Sauerbaum announced that the upcoming operations will also be aimed at employers. "We will continue with the inspections we are carrying out on companies that have hired people in irregular situations and also carrying out the corresponding fine process," he stated. More than 10,000 voluntary departures during 2026 Another of the indicators highlighted by the Executive corresponds to the effective voluntary departures of foreign citizens. According to PDI records, between January 3 and October 4, 10,345 voluntary departures were counted, corresponding to people who had entered the country through unauthorized crossings and subsequently left the territory through police controls, without an expulsion measure being involved. Of the total, 8,243 correspond to Venezuelan citizens, equivalent to 79.7%, while another 970 departures were made by Colombians. Adding the 10,345 voluntary departures and the 1,874 expulsions counted by the Government, the total reaches 12,219 departures reported during 2026. Pavez stated that these results are part of the Migration Ordering Plan promoted by the administration of President José Antonio Kast, and assured that measures aimed at enforcing migration legislation will continue.