Colombia Orders Deportations of 848,000 Irregular Migrants as President Expands 2-Week-Old Crackdown
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Aug 25
Colombia Orders Deportations of 848,000 Irregular Migrants as President Expands 2-Week-Old Crackdown
3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Aug 25
Summary
Joint police-migration operations are due to start this week after President Abelardo de la Espriella ordered authorities to detain and immediately deport irregular migrants and foreigners who commit crimes.
The move targets a population dominated by Venezuelans: 2.8 million live in Colombia, about 848,000 lack regular status, including 193,000 children and adolescents.
De la Espriella paired the order with a "Colombians first" message and a pledge to treat gangs tied to drug trafficking, illegal mining, extortion and smuggling as terrorists.
Opposition figures and rights activists called the plan xenophobic, while analysts noted Colombian law does not classify undocumented presence as a crime and migration officials reportedly lack staff for mass operations.
The crackdown marks a sharp break from more than a decade of Colombian migration policy and comes as the country is still recovering from the 7.4-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 300 people.
Will Colombia’s sudden migrant crackdown trigger a humanitarian disaster, or is it a political smokescreen hiding recent earthquake recovery failures?
Could treating undocumented migrants as terrorists actually empower cartels by pushing vulnerable populations deeper into the shadows of human trafficking?
How can the government legally execute mass deportations when being undocumented is classified as a mere administrative issue rather than a crime?