Jan. 31 (UPI) — Colombian President Gustavo Petro is urging Colombians living without documentation in the United States to quit their jobs and immediately return to their home country.
Petro said Friday in a post on the X social media platform that Colombians who return home will receive financial assistance from the government and that they are needed to help their native country prosper.
“I ask undocumented Colombians in the U.S. to immediately leave their jobs in that country and return to Colombia as soon as possible,” Petro wrote, adding, “Wealth is produced only by working people.”
The president said his Department of Social Prosperity is aiming to provide loans to returnees who enroll in its programs.
“Let’s build social wealth in Colombia,” he declared.
His solicitation to emigrees comes after his government clashed with U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this week over the fate of dozens of undocumented Colombians rounded up in the new administration’s widespread crackdown on migrants across the country.
A diplomatic crisis erupted Sunday when Petro refused to receive a U.S. military plane loaded with deportees while it was in the air, arguing that those aboard should not be handcuffed and treated as criminals.
“A migrant is not a criminal and should be treated with the dignity a human being deserves,” he wrote in a social media post. “We will receive our nationals in civilian airplanes, without treating them as criminals. Colombia must be respected.”
Trump responded by threatening “urgent and decisive retaliatory measures” including emergency 25% tariffs on all goods coming from Colombia, which would be raised to 50% in a week. Petro then responded by promising to impose similar tariffs on U.S. imports.
Petro ultimately relented and agreed to “unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on U.S. military aircraft, without limitation or delay.”
On Wednesday, the Colombian leader again harshly criticized Trump’s characterizing of all undocumented migrants as criminals. Under U.S. law, undocumented status is not a criminal but rather a civil offense.
“We have already received 42 children. Is Mr. Trump going to tell me that 42 Colombian children are criminals?” Petro asked during inauguration ceremony of new Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia in Bogota, according to the newspaper El Colombiano.
Deportees told local media they were chained, handcuffed and mocked by U.S. agents, while being accused without of evidence of criminal acts such as murder and drug trafficking.
“It’s a vile slander, he has no proof of any of that, and as far as I know, those of us who were there only wanted to leave the country in search of another opportunity, but we are not drug traffickers,” one of the Colombians deported from the United States told reporters.