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Arica, Chile – On November 28, with just weeks remaining until the run-off in Chile's presidential election, far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast issued a warning.

"To the irregular immigrants in Chile," he said, "I tell you that 103 days remain for you to leave our country voluntarily."

Kast ultimately won the election and is expected to be sworn in on March 11.

But so far, in the highlands of Chile's most northerly region, the immigrant exodus that some expected has not occurred.

If anything, some residents living in Arica y Parinacota have observed even more immigrants arriving ahead of Kast's inauguration.

“We have a big crisis in the area. The immigration situation is now much worse,” said Andrea Chellew, a 62-year-old highland resident and former Senate candidate for the left-leaning Partido Humanista party.

Arica y Parinacota has long been a focal point for Chile's immigration concerns.

A tip of land wedged between Peru, Bolivia and the Pacific Ocean, the region is often used as an entry point for migrants and asylum seekers crossing irregularly into Chile from the north.

The area has also seen an uptick in organised crime, a central issue in Kast's election. He and other candidates visited the region multiple times to campaign.

As Kast prepares to take office, residents are divided on whether his iron-fisted approach to immigration will alleviate the pressures the region is facing — or further deepen divides.

Kast is popular in the cities and highland deserts of Arica y Parinacota, where the snowy peaks of the Andes mountain range pierce the horizon.

He won the region by a wide margin, receiving more than 62 percent of its votes.

But Kast's impending presidency has prompted some immigrants to race to cross the border before his crackdown can begin.

Already, Chellew has noticed a difference. Ahead of Kast's victory, Peru approved a state of emergency in late November to militarise its southern border with Chile, based on the expectation that undocumented immigrants would flee north.

But Chellew said this has not happened. Instead, she has observed migrants and asylum seekers using alternate routes to enter Chile, largely through Bolivia.

“Bolivians are bringing the immigrants across the frontier in cars illegally,” Chellew explained.

“They give them a lift into the highlands, and then they have to walk to the main road. There, they hitchhike. Well, not really, because they have to pay the driver who takes them down to Arica.”

But the route can be dangerous, and not everyone can afford to take a car.

To avoid detection, some migrants and asylum seekers trudge across the highlands by night, putting themselves at risk of freezing as temperatures plunge as low as -15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit).

And the altitude, which often exceeds 5,000 metres (16,400 feet), can leave travellers sick from the low oxygen levels.

For immigrants fleeing violence and crises in other parts of South America, Chile symbolises relative prosperity.

The country is considered among the safest in Latin America, and its gross domestic product (GDP) is among the region's top five.

But during his presidential campaign, Kast harnessed fears of growing instability in Chile, which has seen spikes in violent crime in recent years.

Kidnappings, while rare, rose by 135 percent between 2015 and 2025, according to a security report from OSAC, a partnership led by the State Department in the United States.

And homicides reached a peak in 2022 following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1,330 victims reported out of a population of nearly 20 million. That number has since declined.

Still, Kast and his supporters credited the upswing to a parallel increase in irregular migration.

"Thousands of foreigners enter illegally without control or identification. Many of them bring violence, weapons and criminal networks," Kast wrote as part of his campaign platform.

An estimated 336,984 foreigners live in Chile without legal paperwork, according to the country's government. The majority, some 252,591, come from Venezuela, which has experienced economic collapse and political repression in recent years.

The influx has coincided with the expansion of transnational criminal networks like Venezuela's Tren de Aragua, which has gained a foothold in Arica y Parinacota.

Still, studies have repeatedly shown that, overall, foreigners in Chile are typically less likely than native-born citizens to be arrested or indicted.

Kast has nevertheless proposed to implement the "toughest immigration policy in Chilean history" to combat crime.

His immigration agenda, known as the "Border Shield", promises to create a force 3,000 strong to "take absolute control of the northern border", starting on inauguration day.

It also outlines plans to fortify the region with walls, watch towers, autonomous drones and deeper trenches than those that already exist.

Carolina Victoria Henry, a 55-year-old Kast supporter, has lived in the port city of Arica, on the edge of the Atacama Desert, for more than 20 years.

She blames immigration for making her life in the city untenable. She told Al Jazeera that declining economic prospects have forced her to move south to the Chilean capital of Santiago.

“When the elections almost ended, after the first and then the second round, a lot of Venezuelans left,” Henry said. “They didn't do anything. They came to make a weight on the economy, and Chileans have to pay for that.”

Even some immigrants in the area expressed sympathy with the fears Kast represents.

Yolanda, a permanent resident from Venezuela, asked to remain anonymous to protect herself and her family from repercussions.

She blames the surge in criminal activity for changing the way locals see Venezuelan migrants and refugees.

"As well as a migration of professional people who have come to look for a new future and work, there is also this wave of crime that came to the region," Yolanda said.

"So that has hit the people who live here in Arica a little, because it's like we're stealing their peace."

Yolanda moved to Chile 15 years ago. She and her three children took a bus through Colombia, Ecuador and Peru to reach Arica. In the years since, she has married a Chilean man.

She has noticed that immigrants like her face discrimination in Chile, regardless of whether they are associated with criminal activity.

“Many times, immigrants have been discriminated against for being immigrants,” she said.

Another Venezuelan immigrant and visa holder, 35-year-old Carlos Arturo Torres, told Al Jazeera he finds Kast's position on immigration "regrettable".

Torres was among those who arrived in Chile at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, after a cross-continent journey that took more than two years.

He now lives in Arica with his Chilean wife and works as a computer repairman. But in his everyday life, he has sensed a tide of hate.

“I have noticed on social networks, on television channels, people who really say that we are all the same,” Torres said.

"It is not like that. Not all people are the same, because we have good people and bad people."

Some 36,925 immigrants live in Arica y Parinacota, only 5,831 of whom are considered undocumented.

This population faces deep uncertainty about life under Kast's presidency, according to Melissa Figueroa, 46, a human rights lawyer based in Arica.

"When Kast gave this speech about ‘103 days to leave Chile’, a large migrant population got in touch with the institutions that work in migration and human rights, with a lot of fear of being expelled from the country," Figueroa explained.

She questions Kast's motives for issuing such an ultimatum. Criminals are not the ones who typically listen to the government, Figueroa pointed out, but undocumented families fleeing hardship might be more easily pushed to leave.

"It was not a speech that caused fear for the people who commit crimes," Figueroa said. "It was a speech that caused fear for the women who reunited with their children in Chile, or who had to leave their country again to find a place to go."

She warned that leaving Chile, as Kast asks, could make it nearly impossible to come back.

The process requires undocumented migrants to declare their status with the police before leaving and then request a special permit to leave from the National Migration Service.

Then, they are prohibited from returning for a period of three to five years.

According to Figueroa, that process should trigger alarm bells for undocumented immigrants in Arica and elsewhere. It could leave them stranded abroad for good.

“It is a political message that actually hides a trap," she said.