Inmigración en Chile (2013-2018). Estado, partidos políticos y políticas de integración de los migrantes

Abstract

The following research is focusing on the series of legislative migration reforms and bills proposed in chilean history over the period of five years (2013-2018) which different governments (left-center and right-center conglomerates and political parties individually) have been treating this particular issue with a series of different approaches, depending of the party-party/conglomerates that support each government. The political spectrum has already grown, with a third conglomerate, called Frente Amplio. Our hypothesis is as follows; the lack of political consensus puts a delay on migrations reforms, therefore, has an impact on migration policies, particularly on integration. It aims to explore the impact of politics in immigration policies (policies of access and integration of migrants), according left-center parties and right-center parties and their representative body (political elite), which embodies local government (mayors, district politicians or concejales), deputies and senators, political advisors, among others. Integration, understood as the last phase of migrants living in a host country and as part of a philosophical and political discussion. We propose a middle-ground base between liberal- restriction policies, which explain the vision of society and migration in the country, away from the more extreme ends of politics-policy (multicultural- xenophobia). What this research brings to the discussion goes to the particular treatment of the concept of integration, particularly understood as assimilation, as important part of republicanism based-democratic countries. We worked with Favell, Bauböck, Joppke body of work of assimilation-multiculturalism approach and Bruquetas-Callejo, Zapata- Barrero relating to politology and philosophy. We specifically use Bruquetas-Callejo approach to migration studies and the division between philosophy and ideology. We propose a middle-ground version of integration and society that reflects what is possible to observe in Chile, away from extremism, such as real restrictionism and liberal policy. This exploratory investigation combines a qualitative methodology to analyze political action with different techniques. We divided the research into 2 phases; a preview phase that analyzes official and political data and some off the record interviews with key informants and an empirical phase were we interviewed a sample of the universe of politicians related to this issue (20 in total). We also interviewed NGOs and local leaders that worked with migrants in Chile, as a secondary information.