Colombia pushes back against US migrant deportation practices

Shafaq News/ On Sunday, Colombia announced that it would dispatch its presidential plane to the United States to repatriate deported migrants.

The move follows threats by US President, Donald Trump, to impose “swift retaliatory measures” in response to Colombia’s decision to block US military planes carrying deported migrants from landing in the country.

Trump, in a post on his Truth Social account, stated, “I was just informed that two repatriation flights from the United States, with a large number of Illegal Criminals, were not allowed to land in Colombia.”

He added that the Colombian President’s, Gustavo Petro, decision has “jeopardized the National Security and Public Safety of the United States,” adding that he would enact the “emergency 25% tariffs on all goods coming into the United States,” adding that it would be raised to 50% in a week.

Earlier today, the Colombian President announced that his country will no longer permit US military aircraft carrying deported migrants to land in Colombia.

President Petro wrote on the platform X, “Migrants are not criminals and must be treated with the respect they deserve as human beings.”

Petro’s statement comes a day after the Brazilian government expressed outrage over the treatment of dozens of Brazilian migrants deported from the US, who were reportedly handcuffed during their flight—a practice Brazil condemned as a “blatant disregard” for basic human rights.

A US official told Reuters that Colombia on Sunday refused to allow two US military planes, each carrying about 80 deported migrants, to land. The flights had departed from California before being denied entry into Colombian airspace.

Notably, the Trump administration is implementing a series of strict new policies to accelerate deportations, granting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers expanded powers to expedite removals, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by the New York Times.