“There are 98 days left for them to decide to pack their belongings and leave the country,” said Republican Party candidate Jose Antonio Kast in a debate this week, after warning that if they didn’t, they would have to leave with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Although experts consider the expulsion of 350,000 people in three months unfeasible, his repeated statements have generated tension and even led the acting president of Peru, Jose Jeri, to deploy military personnel to the border with Chile.

Kast is exploiting public concern about insecurity to incite hatred and criminalize migrants, whom he blames for all the country’s problems, analysts warned.

In a statement released this week, a group of former foreign ministers reiterated that the threat of mass deportations, family separations, or confinement in quasi-prison facilities are incompatible with respect for human dignity and human rights standards.

They asserted that it is unacceptable to unnecessarily strain relations with neighboring countries or formulate proposals that ignore the limitations of potential mass deportation processes, as well as their human and financial costs, for electoral purposes.

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