After briefly suspending U.S. flights returning illegal migrants to Colombia yesterday for alleged mistreatment issues, the country's migration agency said Friday it would resume accepting flights next week with "humanitarian protocols."
"The agreements that we have reached with the North American authorities are the following: the flights for returning people will restart from next week and there are two working groups, with a human rights perspective, which will create two protocols to guarantee the integrity of returning travelers," Reuters reported migration agency director Fernando Garcia saying in a video statement Friday.
Colombia suspended the flights Thursday for alleged "cruel and degrading" treatment of Colombian nationals apprehended by U.S. border officials and returned to their home country, as well as "last-minute" flight cancelations, Reuters reported Thursday.
According to the report, the number of Colombians illegally crossing the United States southern border has "soared" in recent years with Customs and Border Protection logging 125,000 apprehensions in 2022, compared to just 6,200 in 2021.
The United States planned to fly 1,200 illegal migrants back to Colombia, consisting mainly of women, children, and adolescents, Reuters reported.
Colombia, however, suspended the expected flights after U.S. officials canceled them before their scheduled May 1 and May 2 arrivals, Colombian officials said.
"Before the arrival of the scheduled flights ... both were canceled by the North American immigration agencies," Garcia said in a statement Thursday. "There are recurring complaints about the poor conditions in detention centers and mistreatment during flights, which represented a determining factor in the decisions adopted in the last few hours."
Since that statement, however, the pause was lifted Friday, and will resume next week, Reuters reported.
The agreement with Colombia is part of a larger Department of Homeland Security effort to deal with an expected surge in the already historically large number of illegal crossings in the wake of the end of the pandemic era Title 42 order that allowed deporting them back to their home countries due to the COVID-19 national health emergency.
"When the Title 42 order lifts at 11:59 p.m. on May 11, the United States will return to using Title 8 immigration authorities to expeditiously process and remove individuals who arrive at the U.S. border unlawfully," the agency said in a statement April 27. "These decades-old authorities carry steep consequences for unlawful entry, including at least a five-year ban on reentry and potential criminal prosecution for repeated attempts to enter unlawfully. The return to processing under Title 8 is expected to reduce the number of repeat border crossings over time, which increased significantly under Title 42."
According to the agency, the agreements include the countries of Mexico, Canada, Spain, Colombia and Guatemala.
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