The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, salutes the supporters during the closing of the campaign for Manuel Adorni, a candidate in the next elections of the legislature of Buenos Aires City, in Buenos Aires, in Argentina on Wednesday.
Rodrigo Abd / AP
hide
tilting legend
Rodrigo Abd / AP
Buenos Aires, Argentina – Argentine right -wing president Javier Milei published an immigration to the South American nation on Wednesday, a decision coinciding with the immigration restrictions brought by the Trump administration.
In a country that has long spread its opening to immigrants, steep measures and Milei’s declaration that new arrivals brought “chaos and abuses” to Argentina aroused criticism from its political opponents and caused comparisons to American President Donald Trump.
The Milei government welcomed these parallels to its close American ally, the presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni saying that he was “time to honor our history and make Argentina again great”.
Wednesday’s decree tightens citizenship restrictions, forcing immigrants to spend two uninterrupted years in Argentina or to make a significant financial investment in the country to obtain an Argentinian passport.
Immigrants in search of permanent residence must show proof of income or “sufficient means” and have its own criminal record in their country of origin.
The decree greatly facilitates the government to deport migrants who enter the country illegally, to falsify their immigration documents or to commit minor crimes in Argentina. Previously, the authorities could not expel or refuse entry to a foreigner with a conviction of more than three years.
He also asks the judiciary to launch an accelerated also procedures among the immigration courts.
“For some time, we have had regulations that invite chaos and the abuses of many opportunists who are far from coming to this country in an honest way,” Adorni told journalists. The presidential spokesperson is also the main candidate of the Libertad Avanza of Milei party who appears on Sunday in the legislative elections of Key Buenos Aires.
In a big change, the new decree also invoices foreigners to access the care and education of public health in Argentina while obliging all travelers in the country have health insurance. Adorni said that public hospitals had spent some $ 100 million on the treatment of foreigners last year, without offering evidence.
“This measure aims to guarantee the sustainability of the public health system, so that it ceases to be a profit center funded by our citizens,” he said.
Foreign residents from around the world have been guaranteed free access to the vast Argentina education and health systems from a 2003 law under born born, a left -wing populist. Public universities and hospitals are now struggling to deal with major public spending reductions as part of Milei’s austerity program.
Right-wing politicians for years have taken care of what Adorni described Wednesday as “health visits”, in which people jump over the border, receive treatment and return home. Already, several northern provinces and the city of Buenos Aires have started to charge fees of non -resident foreigners to access health care.
Adorni said that the decree allows universities to introduce costs for foreign studies if they wish.
Critics feared that the new rules dispute the tradition of opening Argentina written on migration waves during the decades. Although the gusts of xenophobia have caused repression at various times of trouble, Argentina praised overvoltages of foreigners from all of Latin America, the Arab world, Asia and, more recently, of Russia, offering a path to citizenship and ensuring their right to fundamental services.
