More than 7,500 Colombians deported from the United States have returned to the country between 2025 and the first months of 2026 amid an operation coordinated between the governments of Colombia and the U.S., which included the use of Colombian Aerospace Force (FAC) aircraft to transport the migrants.
The strategy was agreed upon more than a year ago following diplomatic tensions that arose over the conditions under which some Colombian nationals were being sent back from U.S. territory.
The Colombian government maintains that the goal of the mechanism has been to guarantee a dignified and safe return for deportees, many of them entire families, people facing economic hardship, and citizens who had spent several years living in the United States.
However, the figure is even lower than the number of Colombians deported during the Biden administration (2021–2025), a four-year period in which more than 28,600 Colombian nationals had to leave the U.S. for violating immigration laws.
7,500 Colombians were deported from the US between 2025 and 2026
According to the information, several agencies in Colombia were responsible for receiving the deportees from the U.S. In this regard, the Ministry of Defense reported that 58 flights were carried out last year, bringing back 5,938 women, men, and minors deported by the U.S. government.
So far this year, 15 flights have been carried out, bringing 1,601 passengers back home. A total of 3,933 kilograms of cargo have been transported, representing 163 flight hours.
In this context, a total of 7,539 Colombians have returned to date, in compliance with the order issued by President Petro to repatriate Colombian nationals “under dignified conditions” and not in the way that was intended at one point, when they were boarded onto aircraft in handcuffs, which Colombia considered “a clear violation of human rights.”
It is worth recalling that the decision to use Colombian aircraft came after the diplomatic crisis faced by Bogotá and Washington at the beginning of 2025. At that time, the Colombian president publicly questioned the conditions under which some deportees were being transported, especially regarding the use of handcuffs and the protocols applied on U.S. military flights.
The controversy even led to mutual threats of trade sanctions and political tensions between the two governments, marking a difficult year in 2025 for relations between the two countries.
After several days of negotiations, the two countries reached an agreement to continue deportations, but under new conditions. Among the points defined was Colombia’s participation in repatriation processes through FAC aircraft, as well as guarantees related to the humanitarian treatment of migrants during transport.
Since then, Colombian authorities have begun coordinating special flights to bring back citizens deported from different cities across the United States.
Los EEUU no pueden tratar como delincuentes a los migrantes Colombianos.
Desautorizo la entrada de aviones norteamericanos con migrantes colombianos a nuestro territorio.
EEUU debe establecer un protocolo de tratamiento digno a los migrantes antes que los recibamos nosotros.
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) January 26, 2025
A Copa Libertadores champion among the deportees
The people who have returned to the country come from different U.S. states and were deported for multiple reasons, including irregular stay, expired immigration permits, or court decisions related to immigration proceedings.
In several cases, they are Colombians who had emigrated in search of better economic opportunities and ended up facing legal or labor difficulties in U.S. territory. There are also entire families who returned with children and teenagers after spending several years outside the country.
Human rights organizations have warned that many deported migrants arrive in conditions of high economic and emotional vulnerability. Some people return without resources, without support networks, and with debts incurred during the migration process.
The Ombudsman’s Office has also pointed out in various reports that several migrants reported mistreatment, invasive searches, loss of belongings, and difficulties accessing adequate food during some deportation procedures.
However, there are also more unusual and complex cases. One of the beneficiaries of this program was former soccer player and 2004 Copa Libertadores champion with Once Caldas, Jhon Viafara, who returned after serving an 11-year sentence in a U.S. prison after being convicted of drug trafficking.
The former soccer player emphasized that “what the Colombian government is doing — the only country that sends planes to pick up those Colombians is the Colombian government, and that deserves recognition and applause.”
“There are people who wait three months there in prison, people who have never done anything, just for being undocumented, but they spend five or four months there waiting for the plane to come for them, because there’s a very long list,” he said.
He said that, by law, those leaving prison must be deported and stated that “normally we have 40 days, one month, 45 days, to get us out of there, because we come from prison.” However, he emphasized: “When that Colombian Air Force plane arrives, it’s as if the Virgin Mary had appeared.”
Fewer deportations than under President Biden
Although the tightening of U.S. immigration policy has been one of the main hallmarks of President Donald Trump’s second term, the figures show that more Colombians were deported during Joe Biden’s administration than during the current Republican administration so far.
Data released by media outlets and migration monitoring organizations indicate that between 2021 and 2024, during the Biden administration, nearly 28,635 Colombian citizens were deported from the United States. This represents an annual average of more than 7,400 cases.
The figure is roughly the same as the one recorded under Trump in just over 12 months. The phenomenon reflects a migration paradox. Although Trump has hardened the rhetoric and measures against irregular migration, experts point out that during the Biden administration there was a much larger migration flow into the United States, especially through the southern border. That increase also ended up raising the total number of deportations.
Recent analyses even argue that the deportations of Colombians during the Biden era increased by more than 1,700% compared to Trump’s first term between 2017 and 2020.
However, the latest reports indicate that since Trump returned to the White House, more than 500,000 people have reportedly been deported to their countries of origin, representing a notable increase that, by contrast, does not affect Colombian nationals.