International
A deported Colombian says that in the United States they did not respect his rights and received inhuman treatment
Jose Erik Montaña, one of the 201 Colombians deported from the US who arrived in Bogotá this Tuesday on two flights of the Colombian Aerospace Force (FAC), said that in the North American country they did not respect their rights and received inhumane treatment.
“They want (the US Government) to blame their problems on migrants who cannot defend themselves (…) They did not give us rights, they did not tell us anything, they made us sign mandatory documents and it was horrible, it was really inhumane treatment,” Montaña told journalists when arriving at El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá on a flight from El Paso (Texas).
Montaña said that he entered the United States last week fleeing the Colombian armed conflict.
His goal was to reunite in that country with his family, but once he got there he was arrested along with a Mexican and other people by the authorities.
“They handcuffed us from the hands to the ankles, the hips, we were like criminals. There were children who had to see their mothers chained as if they were drug addicts, traffickers, when they really were people who wanted a better future for their families,” said Montaña, who after being deported does not know what to do because his whole family is in the United States.
According to the Colombian Foreign Ministry, 201 people, including adults and children, arrived on the two flights, deported by the US government.
On the first flight, coming from El Paso, 91 passengers came, of whom 46 were men and 45 women, while on the second, which arrived from San Diego (California), 110 people were traveling, of them 62 men, 32 women and 16 minors.
“They are Colombians, they are free and dignified and they are in their homeland where they are loved. The migrant is not a criminal, he is a human being who wants to work and progress, live life,” said Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a message published on the social network X in which he shared photos of citizens getting off the plane.
The Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, pointed out that the migrants were received by a delegation of the Presidency, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the FAC, Migration Colombia, the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF), the Mayor’s Office of Bogotá and the Red Cross.
This is the first of the two aircraft with deportees that are expected to arrive in Bogotá today. According to the Foreign Ministry, the second plane, coming from San Diego, will land “in minutes” at El Dorado airport.
Early in the morning, Colombian President Gustavo Petro published a photo taken inside one of the planes in which the deportees are seen without handcuffs, as requested by the president, who demanded from Washington a “dignified treatment” for them.
Alexander, another of the deported Colombians, told journalists that he had arrived in El Paso 12 days ago requesting asylum, which is why he was deported this Tuesday.
“What we don’t know is why they brought us on a Colombian Air Force plane,” added Alexander, who had migrated looking for “better economic stability” and had crossed to the United States across the border with Mexico.
Although Alexander says that during the time he was detained in the United States they had him in “acceptable conditions”, he revealed that he was handcuffed and tied “by “feet, hands and waist.”
On the return flight to Colombia, he added, he received “excellent treatment.”
The Foreign Ministry said on Monday in a statement that the Government arranged these planes to bring back home “110 compatriots deported from the United States, complying with the protocols established for the dignified return and with guaranteed rights to compatriots who arrive on deportation flights.”
The Colombian president initially rejected on Sunday two planes sent by the United States with deportees, which caused the unprecedented diplomatic crisis with that North American country
Petro’s statement led US President Donald Trump to order the imposition of 25% tariffs on all Colombian products, in addition to other travel and immigration sanctions.
Petro responded with the principle of reciprocity and ordered the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, Luis Carlos Reyes, to “raise import tariffs from the US by 25%.”
However, the White House closed the crisis with Colombia over the repatriations of immigrants by assuring late on Sunday that the Government in Bogotá accepted “all the terms of President Trump” in this regard.
That includes “the unrestricted acceptance of all illegal foreigners from Colombia returned from the United States, included in military aircraft, without limitations or delays.”
International
Petro compares US deportations with trains sent to Nazi concentration camps
The President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, compared on Wednesday the deportation of illegal immigrants from the United States with the sending of tens of thousands of people to concentration camps in Europe during World War II by Nazi Germany.
“From the episode with Trump (…) there are a series of lessons that must be learned, from them and from us. From them, I suppose, they don’t have to get handcuffs from people who want to get out of their own country,” the president said.
And he added that “There will be a political discussion there, for example, if they are not repeating the same mistake of the Germans in 1943 because they used trains and railways to carry entire wagons full of Jews, socialists and communists to the concentration camp.”
The crisis began after Petro disallowed, through a message on the social network X and not through diplomatic channels, the entry into the country of two planes sent by the United States with deported Colombians, claiming that, by coming handcuffed, they were not receiving “dignified treatment.”
In response to that refusal, Trump ordered the imposition of 25% tariffs on all Colombian products, in addition to other travel and immigration sanctions, and Petro responded with a similar measure, which caused panic throughout the country since the US is Colombia’s main trading partner and strategic ally in political and security matters.
For that reason, between yesterday and today, three flights of the Colombian Aerospace Force (FAC) have already arrived in Bogotá, bringing 306 Colombians, of which, according to Petro this Wednesday, 42 are minors.
“Where here is Mr. Trump going to tell 42 Colombian children that they are criminals?” the president wondered.
He added: “In the same way he told 42 children, he will tell hundreds of thousands, who are criminals, that’s what they thought in 1943.”
The president also said that in the United States “everyone who is Latin American, indigenous, black, will be treated as a criminal.”
“It’s called collectivizing crime, it was invented by (Adolf) Hitler,” he concluded.
Petro also assured on Wednesday that his country will have difficulties in its foreign relations due to global changes that, he said, lead to the emergence of “monsters”.
“In the case of Colombia’s foreign relations, we see neither more nor less that what there will be are difficulties. It is a world that enters a phase of profound changes,” said the president when taking office to his new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Laura Sarabia.
Pointing out that the world is in a phase of change, Petro quoted the Italian philosopher and politician Antonio Gramsci to say that while the new does not fully appear or the old is extinguished, “the monsters appear.”
“And monsters is what we are going to have, hopefully not within Colombian society but I’m afraid so are you too,” he said.
Petro assured that those who fight “for a better world” must “put on their boots” and form “an army of life, a united humanity, a united Latin America, a group that knows how to defend democracy and freedom.”
At that point he referred to Sarabia, his right hand, and who at 30 years of age is the youngest chancellor that Colombia has ever had, to indicate that she has to carry the voice of the country in that fight.
International
The White House rescums its order to freeze federal aid and loans
The White House rescinded on Wednesday the order promulgated on the eve of immediately freezing all federal subsidies and loans, a measure that had already been temporarily blocked by a judge.
“The Office of Administration and Budget (WBO) memorandum M-25-13 is terminated,” this office said in a new memorandum addressed to “heads of departments and executive agencies.”
The order to freeze aid and loans had created some chaos and confusion in its implementation, even causing the fall of the federal payment portals of the public health insurance program Medicaid.
The Government had justified the measure by arguing the need to ensure that all funds comply with the recent executive orders signed by Trump, which include restrictions on the rights of transgender people and cuts in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
Trump’s pause put at risk the disbursement of billions of dollars for various programs, including student loans, and could have a negative impact on health research, food assistance and funding of support organizations for veterans and people with disabilities.
The measure could also affect aid for areas devastated by fires in California and floods in North Carolina, regions that Trump visited last week and where he had promised federal support.
Hours after publishing the order, a federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked its implementation for a week.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt had said on Wednesday morning that the Trump administration was “prepared to fight this battle in court.”
For his part, the leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, warned that Trump “will try to find another way” to do it, but he welcomed the decision to terminate the order: “The Americans defended themselves and Donald Trump backed down,” he said.
International
Trump signs a law against migrants with minor crimes, the first since his return to power
US President Donald Trump signed his first law on Wednesday since he returned to power, a measure that allows immigration authorities to arrest migrants for robbery and other minor crimes before they have been convicted.
Trump initialed the law, the first since the beginning of his second term on January 20, in the East Room of the White House, before a hundred guests, including relatives of Laken Riley, a young woman murdered by an undocumented migrant whose death inspired the legislation.
“The United States will never forget Laken Riley,” said Trump, who said that the migrant who murdered her, from Venezuela, should have been deported.
“Instead of being expelled, as should have happened, he was released in the United States, like millions of other people, many of them very dangerous, but you see what we are doing: we are getting them out of here,” he stressed.
During his speech, Trump told the story of Laken Riley, whose name the law bears. Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered in the state of Georgia in February 2024 by an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant, José Ibarra.
Ibarra resided irregularly in the United States and had been arrested for a minor crime of shoplifting, but was allowed to stay in the country while his immigration case was in process. The migrant found guilty of Riley’s murder at the end of 2024 and is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
His death fueled the debate on immigration in the final stretch of the November 2024 elections, in which the Democratic candidate and then vice president, Kamala Harris, lost to Trump, who had promised the largest deportations in the history of the country.
The initiative, approved on January 22 by the House of Representatives, by a Republican majority, with the almost unanimous support of that bench – except for one legislator who did not vote – and the support of 46 Democratic congressmen.
The law also received the approval of the Senate, where the Republicans have a majority, with the support of 12 Democratic senators, despite the opposition of activists for the rights of immigrants, traditionally aligned with the Democratic Party.
These groups denounced the measure for considering it too radical, to the point that it could trigger massive raids against people accused of minor crimes, such as shoplifting.
Civil rights and immigrant organizations also warned that the law eliminates due process for those accused of non-violent crimes.
The arrests contemplated in the new legislation include petty thefts in supermarkets or stores and detainees will be placed in the custody of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The text will also authorize the attorneys general of the states of the country to intervene in the immigration policy decisions of the federal government. Among the new powers, they will be allowed to force the State Department to no longer grant visas to citizens of countries that do not accept deportations from the United States.
According to US media estimates, the government would need to spend more than 3 billion dollars and increase the capacity to detain migrants to more than 60,000 beds in order to enforce that law.
Trump put migration at the focus of his campaign and has pressured government agencies to impose a minimum daily arrests quota per agent and raise the total number of arrests to between 1,200 and 1,500 per day.
The US president suggested that the approval of this law is just the beginning. At a conference of Republican legislators at his hotel in Doral, near Florida, he highlighted on Monday that he shows the potential of bills that will help them take vigorous measures “against criminal foreigners and fully restore the rule of law in the country.”
Petro compares US deportations with trains sent to Nazi concentration camps
The White House rescums its order to freeze federal aid and loans
The Congress of El Salvador ratifies a reform for express changes to the Constitution
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
Defense Minister commends salvadoran soldier for Central American Cross Country victory
Ecuador prison riot leaves at least 43 dead
-
Central America5 days agoTwo U.S. military planes deport dozens of Guatemalans amid Trump’s massive migration crackdown
-
Central America5 days agoBodies found in black plastic bags in a clandestine cemetery in Honduras
-
International3 days agoICE arrests over 2,300 undocumented immigrants in Trump’s first week
-
International3 days agoICE raid sparks outrage in Puerto Rico amid governor’s silence
-
International4 days agoEvo Morales accuses Luis Arce of aligning with Donald Trump and the U.S.
-
International4 days ago
Honduras launches “Brother, Come Back Home” to support returning migrants
-
International4 days agoThousands of migrants begin trek North amid stricter U.S. immigration rules
-
International3 days agoELN stands firm against surrender after Petro halts peace negotiations
-
International2 days agoMore than 200,000 people return to northern Gaza in an ongoing exodus
-
International2 days agoTrump defends the deportation of hundreds of immigrants in his first days in office
-
International2 days agoJacmel, an oasis in the hell of Haiti
-
International2 days agoIsrael’s ambassador to the UN gives 48 hours to UNRWA to evacuate its centers in Jerusalem
-
International3 days agoSheinbaum welcomes U.S.-Colombia agreement after diplomatic standoff
-
International2 days agoThe trial of an Australian Instagramer accused of overmedicating her baby to get donations begins
-
International2 days agoMexico receives deportees from other countries from the United States, but denies being a “safe third country”
-
International2 days agoThe US arrests almost 1,200 immigrants in one day, a new high
-
International14 hours agoCanada’s Foreign Minister expresses her optimism after meeting with Marco Rubio
-
International14 hours agoTrump signs a decree to ban the teaching of race and gender theories in schools
-
International14 hours agoThe helicopter that collided with the plane in Washington was from the US army
-
International14 hours agoHigher contributions and social security: the keys to Chile’s new pension reform
-
Central America7 hours agoThe Congress of El Salvador ratifies a reform for express changes to the Constitution
-
International6 hours agoThe White House rescums its order to freeze federal aid and loans
-
International6 hours agoPetro compares US deportations with trains sent to Nazi concentration camps
-
International7 hours agoPeasants camp in Bogotá in protest against guerrilla violence in the Catatumbo
-
International7 hours agoBoluarte calls for “international strength” to respect the vote in Venezuela and decorates González Urrutia
-
International7 hours agoFormer Democratic senator Bob Menéndez is sentenced to 11 years in prison for corruption
-
International7 hours agoEvo Morales will participate as a candidate with a new party after losing the leadership of the MAS
-
International7 hours agoTrump signs a law against migrants with minor crimes, the first since his return to power