The White House is running into early resistance trying to implement its sweeping plans to ramp up deportations.
after a weekend back-and-forth of tariff threats and sanctions with Colombia over whether it would accept flights of migrants being returned to their home country. The U.S. and Colombia got into a fight over the weekend about the return of Colombian migrants to their home country on military planes, sparking an exchange of tariffs, sanctions and visa restrictions from the Trump administration until the issues were resolved.
Trump said on social media the U.S. would immediately impose a 25% tariff on all Colombian goods and would raise them to 50% after a week, in addition to other sanctions and penalties on government officials. Colombia’s president fired back a threat to levy similar tariffs on U.S. goods, sparking concerns about a trade war that could set the precedent for more of them before theTrump’s administration has highlighted the incident as a warning to other countries that could get in his way, but it also highlights how cooperation from other countries will be required to enact a significant piece of his immigration agenda. The spat comes as the White House is trying to carry out a crackdown on illegal immigration into the U.S. as part of Trump’s expansive plans for border security and the system overall. The Justice Department announced on Sunday it was starting a multiagency immigration enforcement operation in Chicago and the Pentagon is using military aircraft to shuttle people out of the country, which is what sparked the issues with Colombia.signing multiple executive orders on immigration and declaring a national emergency at the border, which gives him more authority over the border and the ability to move around some federal funds to carry out the plans. The Department of Homeland Security estimates there are 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. Trump has vowed to carry out large-scale removals of people living in the country illegally, a massive endeavor that will cost tens of billions of dollars and will at least partially rely on countries in Latin America being willing to accept the flights. “You’ve got to have these agreements because you can't just dump a plane full of people in a country without permission,” said Marie Price, professor of geography and international affairs at George Washington University. Over the last 12 months, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted 7,722 deportation flights, according to, an immigration advocacy group. Colombia accepted 475 of those flights from 2020 to 2024, including 124 in 2024. Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador are the only countries that accepted more flights. Countries with the highest levels of arrests for illegal crossings in the U.S. for the 12-month period ending in September included Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela and Colombia, all of which have longstanding agreements with America to accept deportation flights. Most countries have been willing to accept flights containing their own citizens but there are still obstacles for an enhanced deportation effort. America doesn’t have diplomatic relations with some countries, such as Cuba and Venezuela, meaning migrants being deported from the U.S. can’t be returned to their home countries and would need another one to be willing to agree to receive them. If countries aren’t willing to accept certain people that the U.S. is trying to remove, there are questions about what the government would be able to do with them with limited detention space and requirements about how long certain groups can be held. Another major question facing the administration’s high-profile policy rollout is whether Mexico will fully cooperate with the White House’s policy goals. One of the executive orders Trump signed on his first day in office was to reinstate the so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy that forces migrants to wait across the border for their court hearing dates. Mexico’s president and Cabinet have expressed disagreement with Trump’s executive order reinstating the policy, which comes as he has also threatened steep tariffs on Mexican products over dissatisfaction with a trade deal and border security. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters last week that she has not agreed to accept non-Mexican immigrants seeking asylum into the U.S. “I don't think Mexico is going to take people,” Price said. “The appetite for the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, which Trump is trying to reinstate — Mexico is saying, ‘wait a minute,’ because they fear that they could really become a dumping ground.”
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