Colombia will not accept deportation flights from the United States until the Trump administration provides a process to treat Colombian migrants with “dignity and respect,” the country’s president, Gustavo Petro, said on Sunday in a series of posts on X.
Mr. Petro also said that Colombia had already turned away military planes carrying Colombian deportees. While other countries in Latin America have raised concerns about President Trump’s sweeping deportation plans, Colombia appears to be the first to explicitly refuse to cooperate.
“I cannot make migrants stay in a country that does not want them,” Mr. Petro wrote, “but if that country sends them back, it should be with dignity and respect for them and for our country.”
Mr. Petro’s stance is likely to put him on a collision course with Mr. Trump, who since taking office last Monday has issued a series of executive orders and made other moves aimed at laying the groundwork to try to deport an enormous number of migrants.
The U.S. Embassy in Bogotá did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Among other things, Mr. Petro said he would be willing to allow civilian planes carrying deportees to land in Colombia, but not military aircraft. “A migrant is not a criminal,” he wrote on X.
He did not include details about when or how many military planes and migrants had been turned away.
It is not clear if Colombia can legally turn away its own citizens, or if or how many deportation flights it has received in the past. A representative for the president confirmed that the planes had been turned away, but did not immediately respond to other questions.
Mr. Petro’s statement was in response to a post referring to reports from a local news outlet about Brazil’s complaints of “inhumane” treatment of deported migrants stemming from a video of men seen disembarking in Brazil from a plane from the United States with their hands tied together.
The announcement comes as countries around the world are grappling with how to prepare for the mass deportations of illegal immigrants that Mr. Trump has threatened.
Two military jets carrying deported migrants landed in Guatemala City on Friday, one of first countries to have struck an agreement with the United States to receive deported citizens transported on U.S. Air Force jets.