Colombia’s far-right president, Abelardo de la Espriella, has announced a crackdown on immigrants, ordering authorities to detain and deport people who are in the country irregularly or who have committed crimes. In office for just over two weeks, the millionaire former lawyer made the announcement Sunday as the country continued to deal with the aftermath of a magnitude 7.4 earthquake on Aug. 10 that killed more than 300 people and destroyed more than 30,000. “Let coordinated operations begin to track illegal immigrants: first, those who commit crimes; second, those who have not regularized their status and who will have to be deported immediately,” de la Espriella said during a cabinet meeting held Sunday in Barranquilla, the Caribbean city turned alternative capital. He echoed the “Americans first” rhetoric of his ally, the president of the United States. Donald Trump, saying that from now on it would be “Colombians first, Colombians second, and Colombians third.” The Colombian president has joined other Trump-aligned leaders in the region who have also tightened immigration rules, including Argentina’s Javier Milei and Chile’s José Antonio Kast. De la Espriella’s order faces criticism from the opposition and human rights activists, who say it will end a migration policy that lasted more than a decade under governments of the right and left and that primarily benefited immigrants fleeing the humanitarian crisis. in neighboring Venezuela. Although he used the anti-immigration rhetoric characteristic of other far-right candidates during his campaign, his platform focused mainly on his promise to apply a tough policy against criminal groups. but they represent approximately 90% of all immigrants in the country. Of the 2.8 million Venezuelans living in Colombia, around 848,000 are in an irregular situation, including 193,000 children and adolescents. Left-wing Senator María José Pizarro Rodríguez reposted the president’s announcement and asked if he was “proposing a Colombian ICE against his fellow Latin Americans,” referring to the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He added that “the order to deport irregular immigrants is pure xenophobia and aporophobia.” “Instead of persecuting people fleeing poverty and violence, regularize their status. There are thousands of immigrants who work hard and contribute to the economies of the countries that receive them,” he wrote. Colombian newspaper El Tiempo reported that sources within the immigration department believe the agency does not have enough staff to carry out the operations that De la Espriella has promised. “Illegal” immigrant, as De la Espriella said, but rather migrants in an “irregular” situation, since being in the country without adequate documentation is not a crime.
