Summary
Colombian President Gustavo Petro urged undocumented Colombian workers in the U.S. to leave their jobs and return home, promising government loans for business startups.
His call follows a diplomatic clash with Donald Trump over U.S. deportation policies, including Petro’s temporary refusal to accept deportation flights.
The dispute nearly led to a trade conflict before both sides reached a truce.
Colombia has accepted 475 deportation flights since 2020, ranking fifth among Latin American nations receiving U.S. deportees.
I meant ‘America’ does it in the sense of both employers taking advantage of it and politicians finding it expedient to generally ignore it. It was an arrangement of convenience.
I’m trying to formulae what moderate politicians were supposed to do to head off the disastrous lurch to the right now underway.
Clearly ignoring a porous border and illegal work is not an option. But this was obvious decades ago. It is moderate politicians unwillingness to grasp the nettle and either i) introduce an unpopular low skill work visa and crack down on illegal employment for the sake of the worker or ii) head off growing alarm at what feels to be a lack of security at the border by diverting more funds to patrolling it while enabling better processes for people to enter through legal means
They wouldn’t do either of these options. So now a portion of the population who might have been more moderate in a different universe have now been cajoled by demogogues into believing Trump type rhetoric and bluster is the only thing remotely addressing their concerns.