Colombia resumes ‘removal’ flights repatriating citizens from US
The announcement comes a day after Colombia announced a suspension of flights, citing “cruel” treatment.
Colombia’s migration agency has announced flights will resume next week carrying citizens deported from the border with the United States, a day after the South American country said it would temporarily suspend its deportation program over allegations of “cruel and degrading treatment “.
Fernando García Manosalva, the head of Migración Colombia, issued a video statement on Friday to address the policy change. In a Twitter post, the agency confirmed that “humane treatment and decent conditions during transfers will be the fundamental axis” of continued flights from the United States.
“US authorities have expressed their willingness to follow up on the complaints,” it wrote, crediting the “good will” of the parties involved.
The announcement will follow Thursday press release announcing a temporary suspension of flights intended to return undocumented migrants from the southern US border to Colombia.
The press release cited repeated flight cancellations and the “worrying, degrading treatment compatriots receive before and during flights” as reasons for the suspension.
“The use of restrictive elements such as handcuffs and footcuffs, even for women, mothers of families, has been one of the central aspects of the negotiations with the agencies to dignify the treatment of Colombians,” García Manosalva said in the release.
The migration agency estimated that between May 1 and May 7, 1,200 Colombians were expected to return on the then-suspended flights.
García Manosalva indicated that the number of flights had also increased: a year ago Colombia received one or two a month. In February, he said, “We were receiving about 20 a month.”
Those numbers coincide with an increase in Colombians arriving at the US-Mexico border.
For fiscal year 2022, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) documented 125,172 “encounters” with Colombian nationals illegally crossing the southwestern border, up from 6,202 the previous year and a huge increase from the 404 recorded in 2020.
An estimated 89,201 crossings have already been recorded for the first five months of fiscal year 2023.
The US is currently bracing for an expected increase in border crossings as the controversial Title 42 border eviction policy expires on May 11.
The policy, enacted in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic under then-President Donald Trump, allowed officials to turn down asylum seekers on public health grounds, even though experts said its benefits were questionable. Human rights activists also called the measure a violation of refugee law.
In the days leading up to the expiration of Title 42, the US is expected to finalize new rules to limit access to asylum at the southern border. As part of its strategy to humanely manage migration flows, Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration has drastically increased the number of relocation flights per week.
“The number of weekly flights will double or triple for some countries,” the Department of Homeland Security said in April. Another agency, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), issued a release on Wednesday saying that 48,381 people were removed from the country on “removal flights” in the first half of 2023.
End of April, Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior confirmed that it too had received “removal flights” from the US again for the first time since December 2020. It said the plane was carrying 40 people who had been rafted to the US, plus another 83 who were detained at the US-Mexico border.