Colombia is not going to settle for army deportation flights from the USA till the Trump administration gives a course of to deal with Colombian migrants with “dignity and respect,” the nation’s president, Gustavo Petro, said on Sunday in a collection of posts on X.
Mr. Petro additionally stated that Colombia had already turned away army planes carrying Colombian deportees. Whereas different international locations in Latin America have raised issues about President Trump’s sweeping deportation plans, Colombia seems to be the primary to explicitly refuse to cooperate.
“I can’t make migrants keep in a rustic that doesn’t need them,” Mr. Petro wrote, “but when that nation sends them again, it ought to be with dignity and respect for them and for our nation.”
Mr. Petro’s stance is more likely to put him on a collision course with Mr. Trump, who since taking workplace final Monday has issued a collection of govt orders and made different strikes geared toward laying the groundwork to attempt to deport an unlimited variety of migrants.
The U.S. Embassy in Bogotá didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Amongst different issues, Mr. Petro stated he can be prepared to permit civilian planes carrying deportees to land in Colombia, however not army plane. “A migrant is just not a legal,” he wrote on X.
He didn’t embody particulars about when or what number of army planes and migrants had been turned away.
There have been 190,000 unauthorized Colombian immigrants dwelling within the U.S. in 2022, in line with the latest knowledge accessible from the Pew Research Center.
A consultant for the president confirmed that the planes had been turned away, however didn’t instantly reply to different questions. Representatives for Colombia’s international ministry didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
The announcement comes as international locations around the world are grappling with the best way to put together for the mass deportations of unlawful immigrants that Mr. Trump has threatened.
Officers in Mexico, the supply of the biggest variety of unauthorized immigrants in the USA, have stated they remained open to receiving deported residents and routine deportations have taken place to Mexican cities alongside the U.S. border in latest days.
“In the case of repatriations, we’ll at all times welcome Mexican women and men again to our territory with open arms,” Mexico’s international affairs ministry stated in a statement on social media on Friday night time.
Nonetheless, Mexican authorities haven’t disclosed whether or not they plan to simply accept deported migrants from different international locations, as Mexico has generally completed up to now.
Different international locations are crafting their very own responses to Mr. Trump’s push for extra deportations. Honduras, for example, warned that expelling migrants might push the nation nearer to China’s political orbit.
Brazil’s international ministry complained of “degrading treatment” of its residents after 88 migrants arrived within the nation handcuffed on Friday.
However, Guatemala, Central America’s largest supply of unauthorized migrants, seems to be one of many first international locations to achieve an settlement with the USA to obtain deported residents transported on U.S. military planes.
About 4 million unauthorized immigrants from Mexico reside in the USA, representing about 37 p.c of the estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the USA, according to the Pew Analysis Heart.
However whereas Mexico remains to be the most typical nation of beginning for unauthorized immigrants in the USA, that quantity is down from a peak of 6.9 million 2007.
The unauthorized immigrant inhabitants from different international locations has grown in recent times, particularly from the Caribbean, South America and Asia.
