Chile’s Civil Registry Service has revoked Chilean citizenship for 62 minors born to foreign parents who held “transient foreigner” immigration status, following a tightening of enforcement around a constitutional exception that excludes such cases from automatic citizenship, according to an investigation by CIPER Chile.
The National Migration Service first flagged the issue on March 10, alerting the Civil Registry to 24 cases of children born in Chile to Russian parents holding transient status who had nonetheless been registered as Chilean citizens. Under Article 10 of Chile’s constitution, children born in the country to parents classified as transient foreigners are excluded from the general right to citizenship by birth.
Most of the flagged cases were recorded in Viña del Mar, where two agencies, Chile Kids and Chile’dren, offer paid assistance to Russian citizens seeking to give birth in Chile and obtain citizenship for their children. Chile Kids says it has helped more than 200 people obtain citizenship, while Chile’dren claims to have assisted more than 2,000 families, according to the companies’ own websites cited in the report. Services range from roughly $4,000 to more than $14,000, covering clinic costs and administrative support.
The Civil Registry opened a formal administrative investigation on April 24 and issued internal circulars instructing staff to review whether births occurred within the validity period of a parent’s transient visa, aiming to prevent agencies from facilitating citizenship registrations for foreigners with no genuine ties to Chile.
At least seven affected families have taken their cases to Chilean courts. The Court of Appeals of Valparaíso ruled in favour of one family, finding the Civil Registry’s actions arbitrary, though the case has since been appealed to the Supreme Court. Chile’s Comptroller General is separately reviewing the legality of the enforcement circular after opposition lawmakers requested a legal opinion.