SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Chile has agreed to share criminal records of citizens entering the United States with the country’s Department of Homeland Security, its foreign ministry said on Friday, a week after U.S. lawmakers accused migrants of raiding homes and businesses.
“We have given assurances to DHS that criminal records will be shared in order to prevent criminal tourism,” the ministry said, saying the talks held between officials of the two countries this week had ended “satisfactorily.”
Earlier on Friday, the ministry said that in a meeting between the countries’ top diplomats, Chilean Foreign Minister Alberto van Klaveren and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had expressed “strong interest” in maintaining a visa waiver program between the two countries.
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week threatened to block funding for the program as some lawmakers accused Chileans who arrived on the program of exploiting the waiver to commit burglaries in California.
(Reporting by Natalia Ramos; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
