Key improvements to Colchane Border Complex announced: It will operate 24 hours a day
The facility is key to immigration control. It will receive significant improvements in infrastructure and technology.
Border control is key to maintaining security in Chile. For this reason, the Government has announced three key improvements to the Colchane Border Complex in the Tarapacá Region.
Interior Undersecretary Manuel Monsalve traveled to the area with Defense Minister Ricardo Montero to announce the installation of advanced technology for biometric identification, a significant investment in infrastructure and the continuous operation of the complex 24 hours a day.
“We have come to see the installation of the biometric identification technology here in Colchane. Equipment has been brought here that will record the fingerprints and faces of people who are detained entering Chile irregularly. This information will remain in a database that will give us better control of those who enter the country in this way,” Minister Monsalve explained.
The minister also announced an investment of nearly $3.3 billion Chilean pesos (US$3.5 million) to improve the control capabilities and habitability of the complex: “An investment is being made to construct a perimeter fence and a platform to bring a scanner truck, and to install television surveillance cameras and lighting.”
“Without security, it is very difficult to sustain democracy; and for there to be security, we must have control of the borders,” Manuel Monsalve, Interior Undersecretary.
The Colchane Border Complex will begin operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week from May 15. This represents an important step towards improving the capacity of the Chilean State to improve the conditions of the border complex and provide the means for it to function 24 hours a day.
Along these lines, Undersecretary Montero explained that the Government is constantly evaluating the work being carried out and evaluating new measures to continue improving security at border crossings. “The evaluation of the work we are carrying out is permanent, to see how we can improve and intensify inter-agency work with other stakeholders such as the Prosecutor’s Office and the courts, and to see how we can ultimately deliver a better service to the population.”