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The Bully Lashes Out at Colombia Because It Objected to His Bullying of Deportees [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-26
Immigrant roundups and deportation flights have already started. But it’s one thing to force people onto a plane; it’s quite another to force a destination country to accept them. Colombia’s President Says He Will Not Accept U.S. Military Deportation Flights:
Colombia will not accept military deportation flights from the United States until the Trump administration provides a process to treat Colombian migrants with “dignity and respect,” the country’s president, Gustavo Petro, said on Sunday in a series of posts on X. Mr. Petro also said that Colombia had already turned away military planes carrying Colombian deportees. While other countries in Latin America have raised concerns about President Trump’s sweeping deportation plans, Colombia appears to be the first to explicitly refuse to cooperate.
Colombia’s objection was to Trump’s use of military planes rather than civilian aircraft:
In a statement shared on X, Petro criticized the use of military planes for deportation. “A migrant is not a criminal and should be treated with the dignity a human being deserves,” he wrote. “We will receive our nationals in civilian airplanes, without treating them as criminals. Colombia must be respected.”
Needless to say, treating migrants with dignity does not sit well with the Bully-in-Chief. Trump orders sanctions on Colombia after it refuses deportation flights:
On Sunday, Trump retaliated by announcing 25 percent tariffs on all Colombian goods coming into the United States, as well as a travel ban and immediate visa revocations for Colombian government officials, their allies and supporters, and visa sanctions on all party members, family members and supporters of the Colombian government. “These measures are just the beginning,” Trump threatened in a post on Truth Social. “We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations [sic!] with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!”
The Miami Herald reports that “Trump said the [sic] his administration will also imposed banking and financial sanctions on Colombia.”
President Petro of Colombia also pointed this out:
On X, [Petro] noted that over 15,600 U.S. citizens are living in Colombia without the proper documents. Petro said that, while he’s aware some Americans are living in Colombia illegally, he’s not going to raid them and return them to the U.S. in chains, saying that his government is “the opposite of Nazis.”
Colombia is not the only country to complain about the manner in which the Bully-in-Chief and his bullying minions are carrying out the deportations: Brazil to demand explanations on 'degrading treatment' of deportees.
And then there’s this breaking news: Trump officials issue quotas to ICE officers to ramp up arrests:
The quotas were outlined Saturday in a call with senior ICE officials, who were told that each of the agency’s field offices should make 75 arrests per day and managers would be held accountable for missing those targets. The four people spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal briefings. The orders significantly increase the chance that officers will engage in more indiscriminate enforcement tactics or face accusations of civil rights violations as they strain to meet quotas, according to current and former ICE officials.
This is how bullies operate. They force the people around them to act like bullies — whether it’s their schoolyard friends or government employees — so that they can feel more powerful. This is why the most powerful man in the world is doing this: He wants to feel that power, and he wants everyone he can reach to feel how helpless they are under his power — whether it’s migrant workers or “shithole” counties. Or Denmark.
No wonder he fumed when a true religious leader, Bishop Budde, called him out for being a bully.
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