Colombia’s new president faces backlash over ‘inhumane’ deportation policy

Published On 28 Aug 202628 Aug 2026.

Key points

• Ronald Vergara moved to Colombia in 2016 and founded Fundacion Hermanos Caminantes, a nongovernmental organisation that supports lately arrived migrants.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Maria del Mar Pizarro, a Historic Pact congresswoman, additionally denounced de la Espriella's aims in an interview with Al Jazeera.

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 session on Sunday, ordering police to commence operations as shortly as this week.

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

It marks a stark departure from measures under previous administrations. It 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, " remarked 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."

For context, the far-right president – who was inaugurated earlier this month – remarked his administration 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 almost 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. Plenty of 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.

In practice, the former lawyer has aligned himself with right-wing leaders such as US President Donald Trump. This person 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. This person 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 remarked.

Maria del Mar Pizarro, a Historic Pact congresswoman, additionally denounced de la Espriella's aims in an interview with Al Jazeera. She questioned whether the deportation campaign was regarding security or discrimination.

"Foreign nationals who commit crimes must be prosecuted, " she remarked. "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 continued 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 remarked. Venezuelan diaspora fears policy implications.

According to De la Espriella has, the deportation operation will commence 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, nevertheless, fear that the crackdown will feed into stereotypes concerning their community.

"We must not confuse irregular immigration status with criminality. They are two completely different things, " remarked 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 remarked the law should apply to everyone "independent of nationality".

According to Viloria additionally, plenty of migrants could face political persecution if deported back to Venezuela.

Experts at the United Nations and other human rights watchdogs have accused the Venezuelan administration 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 previously 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.

Meanwhile, the Venezuelan administration, even so, argues it has been constrained by US sanctions. It have affected oil revenue, trade and foreign investment.

Ronald Vergara moved to Colombia in 2016 and founded Fundacion Hermanos Caminantes, a nongovernmental organisation that supports lately 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 informed 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 remarked that residing in Colombia without papers limited his opportunities.

"I always felt excluded. I was never able to obtain a job that paid a decent wage, " he explained.

Vergara additionally stated he has seen cases where those who had a Temporary Protection Permit lost their legal status since 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, " remarked 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.

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