After days searching for an answer to a question – “why do they hate us?” -, the government of Javier Milei announced this Thursday that it will close Argentina’s borders to foreigners who “express hatred towards the Argentine people”.
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If those foreigners already reside in the country, they will be expelled, and if they intend to enter, they will not obtain permission. According to a statement from the Argentine presidency, the decision is made “based on recent expressions of hostility against the Argentine Republic and Argentines”.
“The National Government reaffirms that the defense of the Nation, its citizens, and its symbols is non-negotiable. Whoever attacks the Argentine Republic is not welcome in our country,” the statement adds.
The libertarian Government’s reaction comes after a wave of attacks on social media against Argentina during the Football World Cup in which the Albiceleste lost the final to Spain. The legal amendment incorporates a new cause to revoke the residence of a foreigner and order their expulsion, linked to “expressions of hatred towards the Argentine people or towards an Argentine by virtue of being such” or to “insulting national symbols”.
The newspaper La Nación ironized about the reasons for the Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) signed by Milei, which modifies the Migration Law.
“Neither the singer Rosalía, nor the actor Samuel L. Jackson, nor much less the harsh criticisms towards the Argentine flag displayed by Argentine players in the World Cup, with the slogan ‘The Malvinas are Argentine’, appear in the text,” but the DNU is “according to various officials, the ‘necessary response’ to the ‘anti-Argentine campaign’, which from the president downwards, the libertarian administration has been denouncing”.
After the insults he launched on Saturday in São Paulo at the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Milei assured, without presenting evidence, that the Governments of Brazil and Mexico, along with the United States Democratic Party, financed that “anti-Argentine campaign”.
Experts and the opposition criticized that the measure was taken through a DNU, a legal instrument contemplated only for exceptional matters.
“This decree signed by the president of the Nation is a Decree of Necessity and Urgency. What does that mean? That the president is making a decision that does not belong to him but to the National Congress, but he does it because he precisely considers that there is necessity and urgency,” constitutionalist Félix Lonigro told Clarín.
Peronist deputy Florencia Carignano, former national director of Migrations during Alberto Fernández’s Government, ironized about the libertarian decision: “If all countries did this, Milei could not enter several of them. I can think of at least eight: Brazil, Chile, Mexico, the Vatican, Spain, Colombia, China, Venezuela”.
Another Peronist, former Chief of Cabinet and former Minister of Defense Agustín Rossi, expressed to Clarín his fear that “with the excuse of this decree the Government will launch a hunt on migrants, in the style of the policy promoted by Trump in the United States, considering that this Government tries to copy those policies that the Trump Government implements like ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)”.