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Colombia president, in face-saving effort, welcomes ‘compatriots’ declaring ‘the migrant is not a criminal’

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After a brief standoff over the weekend, Columbia welcomed back migrants sent home from the U.S. where they had entered illegally.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro declared that a “migrant is not a criminal” as he welcomed his “compatriots” in a message posted on social media early Tuesday.

“Our compatriots come from the United States free, dignified, without being handcuffed. We structure a productive, associative and cheap credit plan for migrants,” Petro said. “The migrant is not a criminal, he is a free human being.”

In another post with photos of the returning Columbians, Petro posted, “They are Colombians, they are free and dignified and they are in their homeland where they are loved.”

“The migrant is not a criminal,” he emphasized, “he is a human being who wants to work and progress, to live life.”

After initially refusing to allow two American planes carrying the Columbian nationals to land over the weekend, Petro backtracked when President Donald Trump threatened to slap the Latin American country with a 25 percent tariff on goods: Colombian officials and their families would also be prohibited from traveling to the U.S.

“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump wrote onTruth Social. “We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States.”

Petro fired back with threats of retaliatory tariffs and accused Trump of not treating the migrants with dignity during the deportation process.

“A migrant is not a criminal and must be treated with the dignity that a human being deserves,” Petro said. “That is why I returned the U.S. military planes that were carrying Colombian migrants… In civilian planes, without being treated like criminals, we will receive our fellow citizens.”

He soon agreed to Trump’s terms, however, “including the unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on U.S. military aircraft, without limitation or delay,” according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“We have overcome the impasse with the United States government,” said Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo. “We will continue to receive Colombians who return as deportees, guaranteeing them decent conditions as citizens subject to rights.”

The government even sent its own plane to retrieve its 110 deported citizens who were being held in San Diego.

“This is in order to guarantee respect for the rights of citizens and to carry out medical monitoring if necessary,” the nation’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said. “Another plane is expected to leave in the next few days with the same objective.”

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