In just 2022, 350,000 Chilean nationals came into the United States without the required criminal background checks to enter the United States, the Chilean Ambassador to the United States admitted in a letter to Orange County District Attorney this week.
As a result of a refusal by Chile to provide the requisite criminal histories, the Department of Homeland Security’s ESTA Visa waiver program – Electronic System for Travel Authorization – has become a pipeline for Chilean nationals to enter the United States for the sole purpose of committing home invasion robberies and burglaries.
In Ventura County, 76% of the Chilean nationals arrested for committing residential burglaries and other crimes were in the United States on an ESTA Visa. 100 percent of Chilean nationals who have bailed out of jail in Orange County after committing residential burglaries never come back to court to be held accountable for their crimes.
Our federal and state governments with their soft on crime policies want to handcuff the police, they want to handcuff the prosecutors. They want to handcuff everyone EXCEPT the criminals who are breaking into our homes and terrorizing our residents.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy came to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office Friday along with several members of Congress and the state Legislature after Orange County District Attorney alerted the Speaker to the onslaught of residential burglaries being committed by Chilean nationals entering the United States through the ESTA Visa waiver Program.
At a press conference Friday, McCarthy called on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to suspend U.S. visa waiver program for Chile until it complies with providing criminal backgrounds of applicants, and threatened to block funding for the program if Mayorkas refuses to suspend the program.
We cannot continue to allow Chile to import criminals into this country to commit crimes. And the United States cannot continue to help fast track the import of criminals through the Department of Homeland Security’s ESTA Visa Program.
Many of these criminal imports have violent criminal histories – including murder convictions and prior robberies. Criminal histories that would have prevented them from entering the United States entirely.
But Chile refuses to provide those criminal histories citing “privacy concerns.”
Without any criminal history to reject their ESTA Visa application, these criminals are giving the green light to enter the United States – and the sole reason many of these individuals are here is to commit crimes.
These are people who should have never been in the United States to begin with.
And when we do arrest these individuals breaking into homes we have 48 hours to file charges – and without the criminal history to argue they are a threat to public safety – and they are back on the streets with no consequence.
All we are asking is for Chile is to follow the law – and for the Department of Homeland Security to hold them accountable when they don’t.
