“Expelling from the national territory, without further formalities” Notes on the construction of the repository Archivo de Extranjería, Memoria y Derechos Humanos 1973-1990

Abstract

It is the duty of the State to highlight the value of administrative documentation in contributing to social truth and reparation for the victims of the dictatorship in Chile. More than 50 years after the military coup and more than 33 years after the end of the dictatorship, the administrative documentation produced by state agencies has hardly been addressed from the perspective of transitional justice and human rights. This article seeks to recount the process followed by the National Migration Service in creating a public digital repository of documentation from the Department of Immigration and Migration (DEM) produced between 1973 and 1990. Among the possibilities and different audiences targeted by this repository, we argue that highlighting this documentation allows us to identify another group of subjects affected by the repressive bureaucracy of the dictatorship: foreign nationals. These individuals have been largely overlooked as a primary group subjected to the repressive bureaucratic measures of the dictatorship.