Colombian President Gustavo Petro welcomes ‘free and dignified’ deportees, stressing that migrants are not criminals.
The first flights carrying migrants deported from the United States to Colombia after a major diplomatic row have arrived in the capital Bogota.
The Colombian government confirmed on Tuesday that two planes carrying migrants had landed. A total of 201 migrants — 110 sent from California and 90 from Texas — were on board.
The flights mark an abrupt about-face for Colombia, which had rejected US military planes bearing migrants over the weekend, arguing that their passengers should not be treated as criminals.
Some flights to Latin America reportedly carried migrants in handcuffs.
“The well-being of our fellow citizens and the guarantee of their rights is a priority of the Colombian government,” Colombia’s Foreign Ministry said in a social media post on Tuesday.
The spat began on Sunday when Colombian President Gustavo Petro refused to authorise two deportation flights to land in the country, angering his counterpart, US President Donald Trump.
The Trump administration responded by suspending the issuing of visas at Washington’s embassy in Bogota and imposing a travel ban on officials “who were responsible for the interference” with the deportation flights.
Trump, who has made cracking down on migration a top priority since returning to the White House for a second term on January 20, also threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on Colombian goods. He said that number would rise to 50 percent in a week if Colombia persisted in its stance.
Bogota initially struck a defiant tone, saying that it would impose its own tariffs on the US.
But the two sides reached a deal to resolve the issue late on Sunday, which US officials hailed as a victory.
Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo said earlier this week that his country would resume accepting deportees in “dignified conditions” and use the presidential plane to help bring migrants back.
Bogota had been allowing Washington to send deported Colombian citizens back to their home country under previous US administrations. But Petro’s government objected to how the deportees were transported under Trump.
The left-wing Colombian president said on Sunday that his country never refused to accept migrants.
“But do not demand that I accept deportees from the US, handcuffed and on military aircraft,” Petro wrote in a social media post. “We are not anyone’s colony.”
On Tuesday, he shared photos of one of the deportation flights — a Colombian air force plane — that landed in Colombia.
“They are Colombians. They are free and dignified, and they are in their homeland where they are loved,” Petro wrote.
“The migrant is not a criminal. He is a human being who wants to work and progress, to live life.”
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