U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday announced a series of tariffs, visa restrictions and other retaliatory measures against Colombia after it rejected two U.S. military flights carrying migrants.
“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States.”
Earlier Sunday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said his government would not accept flights carrying migrants deported from the U.S. until the Trump administration creates a protocol that treats them with “dignity.”
Petro made the announcement in two X posts, one of which included a news video of migrants reportedly deported to Brazil walking on a tarmac with restraints on their hands and feet.
“A migrant is not a criminal and must be treated with the dignity that a human being deserves,” Petro said. “That is why I returned the U.S. military planes that were carrying Colombian migrants. ... In civilian planes, without being treated like criminals, we will receive our fellow citizens."
US migrant deportation flights arrive in Latin America
After Trump's announcement, Petro announced in a post on X that he had ordered the “foreign trade minister to raise import tariffs from the U.S. by 25%.”
By late Sunday, the United States had suspended visa processing at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota in direct response to Petro's decision not to accept deportation flights, a State Department spokesperson said.
"The Department of State has suspended visa processing at U.S. Embassy Bogota in direct response to President Petro’s decision to not accept repatriation flights of Colombian citizens," the spokesperson said. "Embassy Bogota has notified individual applicants who are affected. American Citizens Services will not be affected and will continue as normal."
Colombia is America's third-largest trading partner in Latin America.
The row came about after U.S. authorities began arresting hundreds of undocumented migrants per day and sending them back to their home countries, carrying out President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign pledge to deport masses of migrants who have illegally entered the United States.
“We’re going to enforce immigration laws,” Vice President JD Vance told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
More than 1,000 migrants were arrested with hundreds repatriated to other countries, including Guatemala last week, during the first days of the new Trump administration, according to figures compiled by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and the White House.
“It’s going very well. We’re getting the bad, hard criminals out,” Trump told reporters Friday during a trip to North Carolina to view the flood recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene.
Without evidence, he said, “These are murderers. These are people that have been as bad as you get. As bad as anybody you’ve seen. We’re taking them out first.”
The White House released photos of shackled migrants boarding a C-17 military transport aircraft for flights out of the United States.
Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, told ABC’s “This Week” show Sunday, “There will be more arrests nationwide.”
Trump authorized sending 1,500 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, and Homan said, “You’ll see the numbers increase. They’re down there to create a secure border.”
He said the U.S. is deporting “as many as we can” arrest, with the focus first on those convicted of U.S. crimes and then moving on to detain and deport those whose asylum requests have been rejected by U.S. officials.
“We’re in the beginning stages,” Homan said.
“It’s not OK to violate the laws of this country,” Homan said. He urged undocumented migrants, even those who have not been ordered out of the U.S., to return to their home countries voluntarily.
About 11 million undocumented migrants are believed to be living in the U.S., a staggering number that most officials believe will be impossible to deport.
“We’re going to do what we can with the money we have,” Homan said.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump ally, urged his Republican colleagues in Congress to authorize more spending for the deportation effort.
“We haven't given the Trump team the resources,” Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” show. He said Homan “needs to substantially hire more [immigration] agents. He needs to finish the [border] wall [with Mexico] and technology. He needs to go from 41,000 detention beds to 150,000 detention beds to make this work.”
“So, to my Republican colleagues, particularly in the House [of Representatives], as we fiddle, our immigration plans are hitting walls. We're not building walls, we're hitting walls. We need to give Tom Homan the money now to execute the plan that he's come up with. And without congressional funding this is going to hit a wall,” Graham declared.
Trump's executive orders on immigration focus on border security, asylum restrictions, deportations
The Trump administration has stopped taking appointments for migrants waiting in Mexico to request asylum through a mobile app, but Trump’s anti-immigration edicts are facing legal challenges. One judge has already temporarily blocked Trump from declaring that he no longer recognizes constitutionally guaranteed citizenship for children of undocumented migrants born in the United States.
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