- by Graham Holton
- The Guardian
- Issue #2133
Photo: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement – flickr.com (CC0)
With Trump’s inauguration, the US Department of Homeland Security sent thousands of federal agents to begin arrests and mass deportations. Trump directed the military to secure ‘border security,’ issuing a broad ban on asylum and promising to end automatic citizenship for children born on US soil. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has said it would “preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities.”
According to ‘border czar’ Tom Homan, 48 per cent of those arrested had nonviolent records. In the first week, over 5,000 undocumented immigrants were arrested, to be deported to their countries of origin. There are 11 million undocumented Latin American immigrants, out of a US population of 341 million. The great majority of these people are law-abiding. The enforced mass deportation of undocumented migrants has become a major issue for Latin American countries.
On 26 January President Trump threatened tariffs and sanctions on Colombia for refusing two military aircraft carrying chained deportees. Trump wrote that President Petro’s refusal to accept the deportation flights jeopardised US national security. “These measures are just the beginning,” Trump wrote. “We will not allow the Colombian government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals [sic] they forced into the United States!” Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said the US will “no longer be lied to nor taken advantage of,” a reference to Colombia’s left-wing President Gustavo Petro cancelling his authorisation of the planes when they were in the air.
Petro condemned the way the US treated migrants like criminals, and offered his presidential plane to facilitate the “dignified return” of Colombian nationals. Petro pointed out that even though there were 15,660 US citizens without legal immigration status in Colombia, he would not arrest and return them handcuffed to the US: “We are the opposite of the Nazis.”
Petro then said he would place a 50 per cent tariff on all US imports and to sell Colombian products to Europe rather than the US, Colombia’s largest trading partner. Colombia is the United States’ third largest trading partner in Latin America.
Over 4,000 people were deported to Mexico in Trump’s first week of presidency. The Mexican authorities have provided shelter and support services for returnees, such as “México Te Abraza,” to provide jobs and reintegration services. Mexico is the US’s largest regional trading partner and co-founder of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), along with the USA and Canada.
After the US stranded deportees in the jungle city of Manaus in Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Mexican President Scheinbaum held discussions with the presidents of Honduras and Guatemala to seek “unity in Latin America” in response to Trump’s new administration.
In response to the mass deportations, Honduran President Xiomara Castro called an emergency meeting of CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) to achieve a united regional response to Trump. CELAC is an alternative organisation to the Washington-based and anti-left OAS (Organization of American States). The meeting was called off after President Sheinbaum said she would not attend, possibly fearing a US backlash. President Castro has insisted that Honduras would keep seeking a consensus on how to stem Trump’s mass deportation policy.
Unauthorised immigrants include: 4 million Mexicans, 750,000 Salvadorans, 675,000 Guatemalans, 525,000 Hondurans, 275,000 Venezuelans, 230,000 Brazilians, and 190,000 Colombians. There are thousands of US citizens in Latin American prisons, mainly on drug charges, but no prisoner swaps have yet been announced.
