President Gustavo Petro says Bogota will block US deportation flights till migrants are assured ‘dignified therapy’.
US President Donald Trump has ordered tariffs and visa restrictions on Colombia after Bogota turned away two US navy plane transporting migrants being deported below Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Washington will slap Colombia with 25 p.c “emergency tariffs” on all items coming into the US, which might then be raised to 50 p.c in every week, Trump wrote on Fact Social, the social media platform that he owns on Sunday.
He added that his administration will impose a “journey ban and fast visa revocations” and “visa sanctions” on authorities officers, in addition to their relations and supporters.
Trump wrote that Petro’s transfer “jeapordized the Nationwide Safety and Public Security of the US.”
The retaliatory measures come after Colombian President Gustavo Petro mentioned his authorities wouldn’t settle for flights carrying migrants deported from the US till its administration creates a protocol that treats them with “dignity”.
Petro made the announcement in two X posts, considered one of which included a information video of migrants reportedly deported to Brazil strolling on a tarmac with their fingers and ft restrained.
“A migrant will not be a prison and should be handled with the dignity {that a} human being deserves,” Petro mentioned.
“That’s the reason I returned the US navy planes that have been carrying Colombian migrants.”
Petro added that his nation would obtain Colombians in “civilian planes” and “with out therapy like criminals”.
Earlier on Sunday, Trump’s border czar informed ABC Information he was satisfied that international locations reluctant to take again residents would cave below US stress.
“Oh, they’ll take them again,” Tom Homan.
If governments refused, “then we’ll place them [migrants] in a 3rd secure nation”, Homan mentioned, with out specifying which international locations would qualify as “secure”.
Menace of deportations
Trump’s threats to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants with out papers have put him on a possible collision course with governments in Latin America, the unique house to lots of the estimated 11 million undocumented migrants within the US.
Beneath Trump’s first presidency in 2017-2021, Mexico agreed to soak up non-Mexican migrants deported from the US after being threatened by Trump with punitive commerce tariffs.
Beneath US President Joe Biden in 2021-2025, nonetheless, Washington reverted to deporting non-Mexican migrants on to their international locations.
On Friday, two Air Power C-17 cargo planes carrying migrants faraway from the US touched down in Guatemala.
On the identical day, Honduras acquired two deportation flights carrying a complete of 193 folks.
As a part of a flurry of actions to make good on Trump’s marketing campaign guarantees to crack down on irregular immigration, his authorities can also be utilizing active-duty navy to hold out deportations.
