SANTIAGO, Oct 27, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Chilean far-right presidential frontrunner Jose Antonio Kast said Sunday that if elected he would force expelled migrants to pay for their own deportation.

Kast, who is on his third bid for president, is polling in second place behind left-wing candidate Jeannette Jara ahead of the first round of the election on November 16.

But all polls show Kast easily defeating Jara if, as expected, the election goes to a second round in December.

In a TV debate with the seven other candidates, Kast repeated his pledge to deport all undocumented migrants.

"We will invite them to leave the country," he said, adding that they would all be required to "pay their ticket out of Chile."

Chile's immigrant population has grown exponentially in recent years.

The South American country is now home to an estimated 330,000 undocumented migrants, mostly from Venezuela.

Many Chileans blame foreign crime gangs, particularly from Venezuela, for a rise in violent crime which has caused voters to lurch to the right.

Kast has vowed to build a Donald Trump-style border wall along Chile's desert frontier with Bolivia to keep out undocumented migrants.

The 59-year-old father of nine won the first round of the 2021 presidential election but was defeated in the run-off by left-wing former student leader Gabriel Boric, who is barred by the constitution from seeking a second consecutive term.

In the 2021 election, Kast campaigned as an ultraconservative, threatening to close the ministry of women's affairs and to repeal Chileans' already very limited rights to abortion.

In this campaign, he has largely avoided societal issues but said Sunday that parents "should have the right to know" if their daughters took the morning-after contraception pill.

Jara, a Communist former labor minister running on behalf of Boric's outgoing left-wing coalition, said her strategy to combat organized crime would include ending banking secrecy.

The 51-year-old has downplayed her Communist roots on the campaign trail in her attempt to woo voters.

A Cadem poll published Sunday showed her leading first-round voting intentions with 27 percent, ahead of Kast on 20 percent and libertarian candidate Johannes Kaiser on 14 percent.

Conservative ex-mayor Evelyn Matthei is running in forth.

The poll showed Kast, Matthei and Kaiser all defeating Jara in a run-off.