Programas de Retorno Voluntario. El caso chileno

The article seeks to determine the legal nature of the Humanitarian Plan for the Organized Return of Foreigners (PHRO, for its acronym in Spanish). To do this, the legal practice of expulsion of foreigners in Chile is reconstructed. This practice is composed of two regimes: one of them is criminal and the other is administrative. The differences and similarities of these regimes are shown and compared to the PHRO. This exercise demonstrates that, despite the differences, the PHRO has the same effects as the criminal and administrative expulsion regimes, but without the oversight of the effective protection of Human Rights provided by the Courts. From this point of view, the PHRO would be a veiled species of expulsion, since it has the same legal effects as the expulsion regimes, appealing to doubtful humanitarian considerations and based on a “logic of isolation”.