deportation

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stopped publicly revealing where it is holding thousands of detainees who are subject to final deportation orders, an unannounced move that has made it far more difficult for lawyers and relatives to find them, according to current and former officials familiar with the practice.

ICE removed those detainees from its online detainee locator system on Sept. 15, according to three current and former ICE officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the change. Several lawyers contacted by The Associated Press confirmed their clients vanished from the system this week, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association warned its members about the situation Friday.

The move represents a stark departure from previous practice and highlights the hardline nature of President Trump’s immigration crackdown, leaving thousands of detainees exceedingly hard to trace and potentially unable to exercise all of their legal options.

The practice, which applies to detainees who have received final orders of removal from an immigration court, could speed deportations by making last-minute legal challenges harder to pursue, immigration lawyers said. Nearly 16,000 people who were arrested and booked into ICE detention in July were subject to final removal orders, more than a third of the overall bookings, according to ICE data obtained by the Deportation Data Project based at U.C. Berkeley and UCLA.

The practice does not apply to detainees held at a detention facility in Adelanto, California or at temporary holding facilities in Minneapolis, New York City or suburban Chicago, the sources said. Judges have ordered ICE to list detainees in those facilities in the online locator promptly upon their arrival, as part of litigation over their detention practices.

Lawyers and relatives distressed by lack of information on detainees

The effort to hide their locations adds to the ways in which the Trump administration has made life harder for detainees and their families as it has increased pressure on them to waive appeals and agree to deportation.

ICE did not publicize the move and in a statement issued to the AP, the agency did not confirm or deny it. The statement said detainees with final removal orders were being prioritized for deportation, even as ICE faces a “historic number of injunctions” from courts stopping individual removals.

As a result of the change, lawyers and relatives lost track of their clients and loved ones without explanation, which is especially concerning because detainees are frequently moved to new facilities before deportation, said Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

“Families are freaking out because they think the person has been deported and they don’t know where the person might be,” he said. “On the attorney side, this has serious implications for the ability to contact their client. It certainly has implications about how it will interfere with the attorney-client relationship.”

The Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, has argued that people who are subject to final removal orders have received due process. That usually means an immigration judge has ordered their removal after a hearing, including cases when immigrants fail to show up, and the decision was affirmed on appeal or not appealed.

Detainees with final removal orders still have options to appeal

Still, those detainees have options to challenge their detention and removal, including seeking to reopen the case or by bringing what’s known as a habeas petition asking a judge to release them on constitutional grounds. Federal judges have granted thousands of rulings ordering that detainees be released or granted bond hearings.

ICE detention facilities held more than 65,000 people as of early July, the most recent available data. Around 30% of them likely have final removal orders, said Michelle Mendez, legal director at the National Immigration Project.

More people have been issued final removal orders after failing to show up for hearings in recent months because the administration’s immigration courts have taken steps to make it harder to participate and to reopen such cases, she said.

“To me, it’s just another iteration of disappearing people,” she said. “Why would we do that in the United States of America? It’s something we’d hear about in another country and be concerned about individual rights and due process.”

Some with final removal orders also have legal protections against deportation to their countries of origin based on the likelihood they would be tortured or persecuted. Many of them are facing removal to third-party countries where they have no ties and their disappearance in ICE’s system will make legal challenges harder, lawyers said.

Lawyers say clients have vanished from ICE locator system

ICE initiated the online detainee locator system in 2010 to allow relatives, lawyers and the public to search for people in custody. Previously they had to call ICE regional offices or individual facilities to try to track them down.

Many advocates and lawmakers have complained that the system updates too slowly and contains too much inaccurate or missing information, allowing ICE to shield the locations of detainees for days or weeks. Minors, people who have been held by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for less than 48 hours, and detainees who are being transported are not in the system, among others.

But the exclusion of detainees with final removal orders has no apparent parallel, several immigration lawyers said. Atenas Burrola Estrada, a deputy program director with the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, said that “every single one of our clients who has a final order has disappeared from the locator,” including 17 in all as of Monday.

Among those disappeared from the locator system are eight Somali men being detained at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to one of their attorneys, My Khanh Ngo, of the American Civil Liberties Union. She said the change could make it “nearly impossible” for people to challenge their removals in some cases.

“If you can’t find your client, don’t know what’s happening to your client, you can’t get that information to the court to stop their removal,” she said.

Foley writes for the Associated Press.

MEXICO CITY — Nicaraguan journalist Luis Galeano fled his country in 2018 after police raided the television station where he broadcasted his popular talk show, arresting two of his colleagues.

Galeano applied for political asylum when he arrived in Florida on a tourism visa, saying he faced grave risks back home for his fierce criticism of Nicaragua’s left-wing Sandinista government, which the U.S. labels a dictatorship. Soon after, Nicaragua declared Galeano a “traitor to the homeland” and confiscated his home and assets in the capital of Managua.

This week, U.S. immigration agents arrested Galeano in Orlando. Despite his ongoing asylum case, he now faces deportation to the country he fled and whose abuses he has spent years documenting.

Journalists, human rights advocates and political dissidents who were persecuted in Nicaragua and sought safety in the United States are increasingly being detained as the Trump administration widens its deportation dragnet and narrows access to asylum and other forms of protection.

Recent targets include activists who fled Nicaragua after a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2018 and opposition leaders critical of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, a married couple who lead Nicaragua as co-presidents.

Some of the exiles arrested by U.S. agents in recent months had been welcomed with open arms by the U.S. government just three years ago under a novel deal negotiated by the State Department.

As part of the 2023 agreement, Nicaragua freed 222 political prisoners and the U.S. hired a charter plane to fly them to Washington, where each person was granted temporary humanitarian parole and the chance to apply for asylum.

One of those former prisoners, Marlon Gerardo Sáenz Cruz, a former Sandinista who said he was tortured in Nicaragua after denouncing government corruption, was arrested during a regular check-in with immigration authorities in Los Angeles on Aug. 17.

Another, Denis Javier Palacios Hernández, who languished for three years in a Nicaraguan jail after participating in pro-democracy marches, was detained by immigration agents Wednesday morning in Virginia.

Human rights advocates say the effort to deport dissidents with no criminal record and a history of persecution puts their lives in danger and is at odds with U.S. foreign policy, which condemns human rights abuses and corruption under Murillo and Ortega, a former Marxist revolutionary who at 80 is now the longest-serving leader in the Americas.

After Ortega said in July that Nicaragua would scrap all future elections, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had recently announced sweeping sanctions on dozens of Nicaraguan leaders, vowed consequences. This week, while celebrating the anniversary of Central America’s independence from Spain, Rubio praised Nicaraguans for pushing for democracy “despite the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship’s brutal efforts to annihilate it.”

“Whether at home or in exile, Nicaraguans’ aspirations for a future free from tyranny cannot be canceled or erased,” Rubio said.

He spoke one day after Border Patrol agents arrested Galeano, who, since moving to Florida, has driven for ride-hailing apps in the mornings to provide for his two children and has spent his afternoons recording episodes of “Café con Voz,” his daily YouTube show.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said Galeano was detained because he overstayed his tourist visa, which gave him permission to remain in the U.S. only through 2019, and encouraged Galeano to self-deport. “Being in detention is a choice,” the spokesperson said. “The United States is offering illegal aliens $3,000 and a free flight to self-deport now.”

In the past, people who had filed asylum applications in the U.S. were generally allowed to stay and work while they waited for a ruling in their case, a process that often stretches years because of backlogs in immigration court.

That’s changed under President Trump, who has vowed to deport 1 million people annually, and who complains that the asylum system is abused and used as a back door for economic migrants falsely claiming persecution.

As immigration arrests in the U.S. have soared in recent months, surpassing 51,000 in August, asylum seekers and others who have shared their information with the U.S. in hopes of achieving legal status make up a growing share of detainees, according to the Deportation Data Project.

Removals of Nicaraguans have also surged, with deportation flights to Managua increasing more than fourfold under Trump compared to under President Biden, according to data tracked by Human Rights First.

Nicaraguans are also being shipped to Mexico, Costa Rica and as far away as the Central African Republic. They face unique risks in those countries, said Savi Arvey, director of policy for refugee and immigrant rights at Human Rights First.

In Costa Rica, Sandinista operatives are suspected in a series of shootings, abductions and killings of Nicaraguan exiles in recent years.

“This government is so single-minded in carrying out this vast mass deportation campaign that it blatantly ignores realities on the ground,” Arvey said.

Gerald Chávez, president of the Independent Journalists and Communicators of Nicaragua, said that at least one journalist who had sought protection in the U.S. had been sent to Costa Rica, avoiding deportation to Nicaragua thanks to a lengthy legal battle and help from Reporters Without Borders.

Restriction of press freedoms has been a cornerstone of Ortega and Murillo’s efforts to concentrate power in recent years.

Hundreds of journalists fled as government officials jailed colleagues, shuttered dozens of news outlets and passed laws barring reporters from publishing information not authorized by the government. At one point, Ortega even banned newspapers from importing paper and ink.

Galeano — who previously worked as a correspondent for the Associated Press in Nicaragua — believed he had a responsibility to call out what he saw as injustices perpetrated by the government.

“If there is one thing that has distinguished the Sandinista thugs … it is that up until now, they have enjoyed total impunity,” he said on a recent episode of his YouTube show.

Galeano’s arrest has drawn sharp criticism from human rights and press freedom groups and even Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar, a Trump ally who is seeking reelection in Florida.

Salazar described Galeano as a journalist who had “paid a very high price for telling the world the truth.”

“The United States must always know how to distinguish between a criminal and a political exile,” she wrote on X. “Luis cannot end up in the hands of the very dictatorship that persecuted him.”

Linthicum reported from Mexico City. López, a special correspondent, reported from Orlando.

Sept. 11, 2026 5:29 PM PT

WASHINGTON — An Afghan woman who was accused of supporting an Islamic State-inspired plot in the United States and whose case was the first for an obscure and long-dormant court has been deported, the Justice Department said Friday.

Nazira Haji Zada, 47, was arrested in July at her Fort Worth home and brought before the Alien Terrorist Removal Court on a Justice Department application to deport her from the U.S. On Friday, the department said that she had waived her rights to challenge her detention and had agreed to be deported to Afghanistan.

Haji Zada’s attorneys said her decision to consent to removal “should not be seen as an endorsement of this court’s legitimacy.”

“Dragging lawful permanent residents into court but refusing to show them or their attorneys the evidence that will be used against them is a plain violation of due process,” the defense lawyers said in a statement Friday. “We are confident that the Alien Terrorist Removal Court will be struck down as unconstitutional as soon as a judge is asked to address the issue.”

Court filings about Haji Zada’s deportation, including a judge’s Aug. 20 removal order, remained under seal until after she reached her destination.

The swift resolution averts what could have been a protracted legal fight testing the authority of the court, which was established in 1996 but until July had not received any petitions, as well as the strength of allegations against Haji Zada.

Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said the case’s outcome is “a win for national security and the rule of law.”

“Those who support and condone terrorism should not be living in the United States, and this first-ever case before the [court] shows how the Department will use every tool at its disposal to protect our country,” Blanche said in a statement.

The Justice Department has described Haji Zada as a supporter of the Islamic State and identified her at the time as the mother and mother-in-law of two Afghan men who were convicted in Oklahoma of plotting an attack in the U.S. on election day in 2024. The plans were foiled before any attack took place.

Her lawyers at the time of the deportation had been pressing the court to force the Justice Department to share information and other evidence to support the allegations in the case.

The court has specific authority to conduct deportation proceedings for people whom the Justice Department classifies as “alien terrorists.” The court is composed of five federal judges from different districts across the country who are appointed by the U.S. chief justice.

“Those who plot acts of terrorism against the United States have no place in our country,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement. “We will find them, and we will use every lawful tool available to remove them.”

On July 30, Judge Joan Ericksen presided over the first hearing for the court’s first case since its creation 30 years ago.

One of Haji Zada’s attorneys argued at the hearing that the Trump administration’s activation of the court violates her constitutional rights. Attorney Matthew Farley urged the judge to dismiss the case and immediately release his client.

An FBI memo dated July 15 said it “developed information” that Haji Zada is an Islamic State supporter who had her children pledge their loyalty to the terrorist group. Her son, Abdullah Haji Zada, was sentenced in November to 15 years in prison and court records show he previously agreed to be removed from the U.S. after his release.

Her son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, previously worked as a security guard for an American military installation in Afghanistan. He pleaded guilty to conspiring and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State group. Prosecutors have said he took steps to advance his attack plans by ordering AK-47 rifles, liquidating his family’s assets and buying one-way tickets for his wife and child to travel home to Afghanistan.

Tucker and Kunzelman write for the Associated Press.

If you want proof of the widening chasm between the Trump administration and Latinos, look no further than California state Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares and White House spokesperson Lauren Bis’ reaction to the same anti-Latino image.

Posted on the White House’s social media accounts this week, it’s a take on the logo for the beloved 1990s PBS cartoon “The Magic School Bus.” Same cheery font, same yellow bus blasting through the cosmos, same depiction of wacky teacher Ms. Frizzle and her cute chameleon sidekick Liz. But instead of a bunch of happy kids off to another adventure, the passengers are five handcuffed, brown-skinned, mustachioed men looking downward and dejected, all identical save for the colors of their T-shirts.

Bracketing this soulless scene are the words “The Magic Deportation Bus” — get it? Har har! The White House released the illustration to accompany an Aug. 24 Fox News headline gushing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had arrested a “jaw-dropping number” of undocumented immigrants in the D.C. area over the last two weeks.

The post was the latest in a flood of racist, anti-immigrant images that the Trump administration has shared. But this one was so bad that it even offended Martinez Valladares, a Republican whose district stretches from the Grapevine to Victorville.

“Enforcing immigration law and securing the border isn’t anti-Latino. But this image wasn’t necessary or helpful,” she told me. “We can strongly support border security while expecting our government to communicate those policies without reducing a community to a stereotype. Being tough on illegal immigration doesn’t require turning Latinos into a caricature.”

Suzette Martinez Valladares, then a Republican assembly member and now a state senator, is pictured in 2022.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Martinez Valladares isn’t any random Trump supporter. She’s co-chair of the California Hispanic Caucus, which represents the state’s GOP Latino legislators and was founded after a record number of them — nine — were elected in 2024. The group’s creation reflected the tsunami of Latino support for Trump that helped sweep him into the Oval Office for a second round and upended political thinking about America’s largest minority.

Such a critique from a politician of Martinez Valladares’ stature should set off fire alarms in the Oval Office as the midterms loom and the GOP needs Trump’s Latino supporters to hold the party line, right?

Nope!

When I asked the White House whether the “Magic Deportation Bus” was anti-Latino, spokesperson Bis whined in a statement that my query was “more race baiting by the media who are just mad the White House’s social media content is driving conversations with the American people about deporting illegal aliens. Is the L.A. Times really suggesting there has never been a deportation flight of just Guatemalans?”

Who’s doing the race baiting?

Nothing in the gross graphic suggests that Guatemala is the final destination for Migra Ms. Frizzle and her detainees. The men’s appearance is the only indication that they’re Latino — just the type of racial profiling that Trump’s immigration goons swear they don’t engage in, despite ample video and audio evidence to the contrary. While Latinos have long made up the majority of deportees, to portray the bus passengers as interchangeable clones who “look” Latino is as dehumanizing as you can get — but that’s par for MAGA.

Not only that, but the Fox News story that went with the icky illo said that ICE’s D.C. operation nabbed Jamaicans, Hondurans and Salvadorans, in addition to Guatemalans.

Trump and his minions famously never apologize, doubling down on their pendejadas when confronted with facts. Well, if Republicans wants any chance of holding on to Congress in the midterms and winning other key races, they need to beg Latinos for forgiveness, now that Trump has upended the lives of brown-skinned people, immigrants and U.S.-born alike.

A 1949 photo of undocumented immigrants boarding a bus for deportation to Mexico.

(Los Angeles Times)

Nearly half of Latinos voted for Trump two years ago, the best result ever for a Republican presidential candidate. Poll after poll released this year, each more dire for Trump than the last, show that those days are as distant a memory as affordable groceries. His approval ratings — and GOP hopes for the midterms — will continue to wither until he spends more time fixing the stagnant economy, ending the quagmire in Iran and stopping the deportation deluge.

To maintain his grip on power, Trump needs to inspire Latinos to stand by him, vote for his agenda and urge others to follow along. Instead, he faces frustrated supporters like David Hernandez, founder and chair of the Los Angeles County Hispanic Republican Club and host of the club’s weekly talk radio show.

Hernandez said he’s seen the perils of “unchecked” immigration at overcrowded hospitals and clinics. He also feels that in the race for California governor, Republican Steve Hilton’s attacks on Democrat Xavier Becerra’s alleged mishandling of migrant children while Health and Human Services secretary for the Biden administration will stay on the “front burner.”

The “Magic Deportation Bus” does nothing to highlight these issues, Hernandez said, describing it as “an immature cartoon failing to make any valid point.” Worse, the Navy veteran argues, it suggests that immigration agents plan to snatch children from schools.

“There is nothing funny about the issue,” Hernandez added, “that warrants this type of frivolous portrayal.”

I ran Hernandez’s and Martinez Valladares’ thoughts by Bis, noting their GOP bona fides without identifying them by name.

“Take a ride on The Magic School Bus to your home country!” the White House spokesperson began. Only her heart knows whether the line was a callback to the offending social media post or a not-nice suggestion that I self-deport to wherever the hell she thinks I was born (I’m a native Anaheimer, by the way).

Bis went on to repeat her previous line that the Trump administration is just seeking to “innovate” conversations with Americans and that “our efforts to deport criminal illegal aliens are no exception to this.”

Way to listen to the concerns of the front-line soldiers your boss so desperately needs this November, Lauren!

Spending more time crafting weak-salsa anti-Latino jokes than improving the lives of Latinos — that’s the racist swamp the president and his team happily fester in.

But there’s one thing their putrid parody of “The Magic School Bus” got right.

Ms. Frizzle often shrank her steel steed and its occupants to microscopic sizes so they could explore places they’d never seen. That sure sounds like the historic collapse that Trump is experiencing with Latinos, no?

To use Ms. Frizzle’s catchphrase: Bus, do your stuff.

Bogota, Colombia – Opposition politicians and migrant communities in Colombia have decried President Abelardo de la Espriella’s plan to launch a deportation campaign against foreign nationals living irregularly in the country.

De la Espriella unveiled the crackdown during a security council meeting on Sunday, ordering police to begin operations as soon as this week.

The policy is expected to primarily affect Venezuelans, by far the largest migrant population in Colombia.

It marks a stark departure from measures under previous administrations, which largely sought to create legal immigration pathways for those fleeing hardship in neighbouring Venezuela.

“I will not accept any illegal immigrants, wherever they come from,” said de la Espriella in a video shared on the social media platform X on Sunday evening. “They will have to leave and be deported. It is a political decision I am taking responsibility for.”

The far-right president – who was inaugurated earlier this month – said his government will first target those “committing crimes” and then those whose “status has not been regularised”.

While de la Espriella did not address any specific nationalities, some 95 percent of Colombia’s migrant population are Venezuelan, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental group.

Approximately 2.8 million Venezuelans reside in Colombia, making it home to the largest Venezuelan migrant community in the world.

While nearly 2 million have a Temporary Protection Permit (PPT) authorising them to live in the country, an estimated 500,000 lack permission to be in Colombia, according to migration authorities. Many of them were granted temporary permits that have since expired.

De la Espriella, a political outsider, pledged to tackle illegal immigration during his presidential campaign, his first bid for elected office.

The former lawyer has aligned himself with right-wing leaders such as US President Donald Trump, who initiated his own deportation campaign in the United States.

De la Espriella’s declaration on Sunday triggered uproar among opposition leaders, including leftist Senator Ivan Cepeda, who narrowly lost the presidency in a June run-off. He leads the Historic Pact, the largest party in Colombia’s Congress.

“Today, de la Espriella has added xenophobia to all the authoritarian, despotic and discriminatory traits of his policies,” Cepeda wrote on X.

Cepeda then accused de la Espriella of failing to protect Colombian deportees from the United States.

“De la Espriella is bold enough to target migrants from Latin American countries in Colombia, yet cowardly when it comes to protecting our fellow migrants in the United States,” he said.

Maria del Mar Pizarro, a Historic Pact congresswoman, also denounced de la Espriella’s plans in an interview with Al Jazeera. She questioned whether the deportation campaign was about security or discrimination.

“Foreign nationals who commit crimes must be prosecuted,” she said. “But persecuting and deporting someone — simply because their immigration status is not in order — is populism, not security.”

Given the porous nature of the roughly 2,200-kilometre (1,370-mile) land border between the two countries, Pizarro added that there is little to stop deported Venezuelans from returning to Colombia.

“Without border control, legalisation and intelligence efforts against criminal gangs, the government pays for the deportation, and the problem returns,” she said.

Venezuelan diaspora fears policy implications

De la Espriella has announced that the deportation operation will begin with a pilot programme in the coastal city of Barranquilla, which is home to an estimated 182,000 Venezuelans.

Members of the Venezuelan diaspora in the city, however, fear that the crackdown will feed into stereotypes about their community.

“We must not confuse irregular immigration status with criminality. They are two completely different things,” said Juan Carlos Viloria Doria, the vice president of Venezuelans in Barranquilla, a migrant advocacy organisation.

While he backed the need to prosecute those who commit crimes, he said the law should apply to everyone “independent of nationality”.

Viloria also noted that many migrants could face political persecution if deported back to Venezuela.

Experts at the United Nations and other human rights watchdogs have accused the Venezuelan government of “repressive” activities, including the arbitrary detention and torture of political dissidents.

“We have people who left because they believed their lives, their freedom, or their safety were at risk,” Viloria explained. “Added to that are the economic, social and humanitarian conditions that Venezuela still faces.”

Despite being home to the world’s largest petroleum reserves, Venezuela has suffered from a plummeting gross domestic product (GDP) and rampant hyperinflation in the past decade.

Critics of the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) say it has presided over chronic economic mismanagement, funnelling oil profits to a small elite while underfunding public services.

The Venezuelan government, however, argues it has been constrained by US sanctions, which have affected oil revenue, trade and foreign investment.

Faced with Venezuela’s economic crisis and threats of political persecution, some 7.6 million citizens have left the country since 2014, according to the UN.

Ronald Vergara moved to Colombia in 2016 and founded Fundacion Hermanos Caminantes, a nongovernmental organisation that supports recently arrived migrants. He fears how de la Espriella’s crackdown may harm an already struggling community.

“It would truly be inhumane to deport people who came here to survive and to work – decent people, who account for the majority of us,” he told Al Jazeera.

Despite living in Colombia for 10 years, Vergara was only granted a Temporary Protection Permit a few months ago, due to delays in the system. He said that residing in Colombia without papers limited his opportunities.

“I always felt excluded. I was never able to get a job that paid a decent wage,” he explained.

Vergara also said he has seen cases where those who had a Temporary Protection Permit lost their legal status because their identity card was lost or stolen. Thousands of others are still waiting to be granted their papers, including his son.

“He’s 17 and about to graduate from high school, but he can’t graduate without the PPT,” said Vergara.

A departure from political tradition

De la Espriella’s announcement heralds a new era of anti-immigrant politics in Colombia, according to experts.

Since the Venezuelan migration crisis began, successive administrations in Bogota have responded by offering new arrivals assistance and opportunities for integration.

In 2017, for instance, then-President Juan Manuel Santos introduced a two-year temporary permit for Venezuelans called the Special Permit of Permanence and bolstered humanitarian assistance on the border.

His successor, right-wing leader Ivan Duque, severed relations with Caracas in 2019, closing the land border to vehicular traffic and suspending air travel. But he still offered migrants the chance to remain in Colombia by rolling out the PPT in 2021.

Most recently, Colombia’s first left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, presided over a thaw in bilateral relations with Venezuela and adopted a pro-migrant stance. His presidency ended this year, with de la Espriella’s victory.

Ronal Rodriguez, a spokesperson at the Venezuela Observatory, a research centre at Bogota’s Rosario University, said de la Espriella’s policies interrupt a years-long trend.

“Everyone had a favourable stance toward migration and, in particular, used language that promoted integration,” Rodriguez explained.

“Unfortunately, I believe that this ends – for the moment – with what President Abelardo de la Espriella is now saying.”

While the president has pledged a crackdown on irregular migrants, the full details of his deportation platform have yet to be revealed.

For Rodriguez, de la Espriella may yet back down from his bold declarations.

He hopes that the president will “reconsider and return to the Colombian government’s policy of integration”.