Colombian President Gustavo Petro urged undocumented Colombians who are living in the U.S. to return home, saying they would be rewarded for it.
“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 said in a Friday morning post on X
“Wealth is produced only by working people,” he added.
Petro said the Department of Social Prosperity will look to give out loans to those returnees who enroll in the program.
“Let’s build social wealth in Colombia,” he wrote.
The president and his government were engaged in a heated back-and-forth tussle last weekend over immigration and trade.
Petro initially said that U.S. planes carrying Colombian migrants would not be able to land in the country.
President Trump retaliated by threatening to impose a 25 percent tariff on Colombian goods coming into the country while also banning government officials and their family members from being able to travel to the U.S.
Similarly, Petro said Colombia would be instating a 25 percent tariff on goods.
The situation was resolved, for now, on Sunday night, when the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed in a statement that the two sides agreed and that Colombia will accept all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on U.S. military aircraft, without limitation or delay.”
Since then, Colombian plaes have been arriving in Bogota with migrants who Petro said were not “criminals.”
“Our compatriots come from the United States free, dignified, without being handcuffed. We structure a productive, associative and cheap credit plan for migrants,” he said.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá shut down visa appointments for Colombians seeking entry to America over the “Colombian government’s refusal to accept repatriation flights of Colombian nationals.”
