SANTIAGO, Chile — Chilean President José Antonio Kast wasted no time.

Less than a week after his inauguration, Chile’s arch-conservative president on Monday began overseeing preparations to build a border barrier — part of his flagship campaign promise to block immigrants from crossing illegally.

From Chile’s northern frontier area of Chacalluta, where legions of immigrants have slipped across the Peruvian border into one of the region’s most prosperous nations, Kast vowed to implement what he calls his “Border Shield” plan. Among other steps, it involves the construction of a physical barrier at the nation’s northern border made up of ditches and fences and patrolled by drones and the military forces.

So far, it doesn’t look like much. A single bulldozer on Monday could be seen digging into the desert to carve out a trench.

But Kast assured the public that “for all of Chile, this is a milestone.”

“We have taken clear and concrete decisions to close our border to illegal immigration, drug trafficking and organized crime,” he said. “We want to implement this without any delay.”

Echoing the political approach of his ally, U.S. President Donald Trump, Kast in his first days in office used emergency powers to issue half a dozen decrees aimed at ramping up border security and deporting foreigners found to have entered the country illegally.

Chile’s foreign population doubled between 2017 and 2024. Over 300,000 foreigners without proper documentation are believed to be living in the country now, many of them Venezuelans.

In addition to families fleeing political persecution and economic collapse, foreign criminal gangs from Venezuela and elsewhere have settled in Chile in recent years. Although homicide rates in Chile are still some of the lowest in the region, carjackings, kidnappings and contract killings previously unseen in the stable nation have flooded local media and spread fear, leading many Chileans to blame the new arrivals.

Kast’s rise marks Chile’s most right-wing turn since 1990, when the country restored democracy after 17 years of brutal military rule under Gen. Augusto Pinochet — a leader that Kast campaigned for in his youth.

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