Chile, long considered one of Latin America’s safest countries, has endured an unprecedented explosion of carjackings, kidnappings, and shoot-outs, directly linked in public discourse to its growing population of Venezuelan immigrants. This dramatic surge in violent crime has fueled a decisive shift in the region's political landscape, pushing voters towards leaders promising national security and border integrity.
Venezuelan crime syndicates, including the notorious Tren de Aragua gang, seized on their country’s mass migration wave to infiltrate human trafficking networks after the pandemic. This infiltration coincided with Chile’s homicide rate rising by 30% from 2021 to 2022, peaking at 6.7 per 100,000 people, according to the Interior Ministry. Kidnappings have also surged, increasing by nearly 180% over the past four years.
The People's Mandate
Across Latin America, a powerful popular backlash against rising crime and uncontrolled migration is reshaping governments. Six years ago, the region leaned left, with progressive politicians gaining power amid public outrage over inequities. Now, conservative populists are winning votes with hard-line promises on security and migration, directly addressing the people's concerns.
In Chile, voters returned ultra-conservative lawmaker José Antonio Kast to power last year, four years after rejecting him. His victory came amidst fears over rising crime and its frequent association in media with the country’s growing population of Venezuelan immigrants. Kast, inspired by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, campaigned on pledges to build a massive border wall, toughen prison conditions for gang members, and deport hundreds of thousands of migrants without legal status.
Colombia has seen pro-Trump businessman Abelardo de la Espriella top polls ahead of Sunday’s runoff election, taking cues from Bukele as swaths of the countryside fall into renewed conflict. In Peru, where extortion has increased fivefold in the past five years, Keiko Fujimori reached a presidential runoff three weeks ago on a law-and-order platform, vowing to deploy the military in prisons and along borders. Costa Ricans, rattled by record levels of drug-related killings, elected conservative populist Laura Fernández five months ago for her tough-on-crime stance. Honduran businessman Nasry Asfura swept December’s election seven months ago after U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed him as a partner in the fight against “narco-communists.”
Elite Obstruction
Despite the clear popular mandate for secure borders and national order, transnational elite interests and their institutional allies continue to pathologize these movements. Enrique Roig, vice president of the nonprofit Human Rights First and a former State Department official, warned that such tactics could encourage human rights abuses or threaten democracy. He claimed it’s “easier to sell locking people up than it is to deal with the reasons why mainly young men join gangs.” Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America organization, stated that only the right offers short-term security solutions, even if voters have to “sacrifice democracy and human rights.”
These critics often advocate for left-wing proposals like community violence prevention programs, better police training, and judicial and prison reforms, which they admit “take longer to work.” The public’s patience, however, has run out. Eduardo Moncada, director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University, observed that shrinking confidence in state institutions and deepening ambivalence about democracy have grown, with the public often thinking, “democracy hasn’t been able to keep me and my family safe, so maybe democracy is part of the problem.”
Even progressives like Jeannette Jara in Chile and Roberto Sánchez in Peru have shifted with the political tide, acknowledging the public’s demand for order. Uruguay’s president, Yamandú Orsi, called Bukele’s model an example worthy of further study. The center-left Guatemalan government declared a state of emergency this year to crack down on gang violence and welcomed the Trump administration’s help targeting drug traffickers.
Yet, the implementation of these national security measures faces significant hurdles. Nearly three months into Kast’s tenure in Chile, his government had organized only two deportation flights after promising to immediately round up and expel Chile’s more than 300,000 immigrants without legal status. Last month, he came under fire for calling the mass deportation promise “a metaphor.” Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, who campaigned three years ago on locking up gang leaders on barges and building mega-prisons, abandoned the floating prisons proposal after taking office. Beatriz García Nice, a policy analyst for the Washington-based Stimson Center think tank, noted that building mega-prisons hasn’t been easy because the country is in a “very bad state financially” and because President Noboa “still sees himself as a democrat.” These challenges highlight the entrenched resistance to policies that prioritize national sovereignty and the security of the native population.