(Bloomberg) -- Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella vowed to start deporting undocumented migrants as part of a broader security crackdown, a policy that could affect hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans living in the country without regular status.
Police will begin operations as soon as this week, the president said during a weekend security council meeting in Barranquilla.
“Colombians must come first, second and third,” De la Espriella said, in remarks that were broadcast Monday. “Let the coordinated operations begin to find illegal immigrants, first those committing crimes, then those whose status is not regularized.”
The conservative leader’s “Colombia First” rhetoric marks a shift in a country where immigration hasn’t been a major national political issue, despite the arrival of millions of Venezuelans fleeing their nation’s economic collapse. It also puts De la Espriella closer to his ally US President Donald Trump and conservative politicians elsewhere in Latin America who have pledged tougher immigration enforcement.
Colombia has borne the brunt of Venezuela’s migration crisis, as millions crossed the loosely controlled 1,400-mile (2,250-kilometer) border to flee hunger and political repression. There are currently about 2.8 million Venezuelans living in Colombia, with more than half a million lacking regular migration status, according to data from the migration agency.
De la Espriella said the crackdown will apply to migrants “wherever they come from”. Virtually all the irregular immigrants in the country are from Venezuela, however.
Successive Colombian governments have sought to regularize them, given the ease with which they can cross the border. In 2021, conservative former President Iván Duque created a temporary protection program that offered legal status to more than one million Venezuelans.
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