{"id":83045,"date":"2026-08-04T20:39:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T03:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=83045"},"modified":"2026-08-04T20:39:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T03:39:28","slug":"colombian-asylum-seekers-hoped-de-la-espriella-would-be-a-bridge-to-trump-turns-out-he-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=83045","title":{"rendered":"Colombian Asylum Seekers Hoped de la Espriella Would Be a Bridge to Trump. Turns Out He is."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
By<\/span>Peter Schurmann<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

On August 7, Colombia will swear in its new president, the far-right firebrand and Trump-backed Abelardo de la Espriella, or \u201cThe Tiger\u201d as he\u2019s often called. The White House\u2019s support during the campaign\u00a0played a key role<\/a>\u00a0in de la Espriella\u2019s June victory.<\/p>\n

It also helped him secure more than 80% of votes cast by overseas Colombians, many of them in the US, and many now the target of deportation efforts that de la Espriella himself appears ready to support.<\/p>\n

Fernando (who asked that we only use his first name) fled Colombia with his family in 2022, a year that saw\u00a0a record 547,000 Colombians leave the country amid escalating violence and political instability. (The non-partisan Migration Policy Institute\u00a0estimates<\/a>\u00a0the number of unauthorized Colombians now in the US at 444,000, up from 182,000 in 2019.)<\/p>\n

According to Fernando, whose asylum case remains pending, he and his family faced mounting threats from local criminal groups in the rural region of Colombia where they ran a small business. Faced with demands for money he didn\u2019t have, and fearing for his life and that of his family, he made the decision to leave.<\/p>\n

Criminal groups have expanded across much of Latin America in recent years, explaining in part the region\u2019s\u00a0dramatic swing to the right<\/a>\u00a0in recent elections.<\/p>\n

Now living in the Bay Area, Fernando says he was drawn by de la Espriella\u2019s promise of \u201cla mano dura,<\/em>\u201d or iron fist, a style of politics defined by hardline, tough-on-crime policies that have often\u00a0veered into human rights violations<\/a>\u00a0and political persecution in countries across Latin America.<\/p>\n

El Salvador\u2019s Nayib Bukele is currently the most well-known and popular embodiment of la mano dura. His presidency \u2014\u00a0marked by\u00a0extensive and documented human rights abuses<\/a>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0has inspired leaders from Ecuador\u2019s Daniel Noboa to\u00a0Chile\u2019s Antonio Kast<\/a>\u00a0to de la Espriella himself, whose campaign was replete with promises to crush Colombia\u2019s criminal groups while constructing a series of mega-prisons akin to El Salvador\u2019s notorious CECOT.<\/p>\n

For Colombians like Fernando, whose lives had been upended by the country\u2019s crumbling security situation, the message resonated. But there was an added element to de la Espriella\u2019s allure.<\/p>\n

A former litigator turned businessman \u2014 who made a name and modest fortune for himself defending politicians indicted for corruption, as well as men with\u00a0known ties to drug traffickers<\/a>\u00a0and paramilitary groups \u2014\u00a0de la Espriella is also a U.S. citizen.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think that maybe because of that, there\u2019s a chance they\u2019ll give us a little more support here, where we can settle down more, feel safer,\u201d said Fernando. He explains that for Colombians like himself living in the US with\u00a0liminal legal status<\/a>, the hope was that de la Espriella would act on their behalf as a bridge to the White House.<\/p>\n

And in fact, the soon-to-be president appears willing to assume that role, though perhaps not in the way Fernando imagined.<\/p>\n

On June 22, Colombian American Republican Senator Bernie Moreno (R \u2013 Oh) met with de la Espriella and\u00a0posted a message<\/a>\u00a0soon after on the social media platform, X. The message read, in part, the president-elect had \u201cimmediately agreed that ANY Colombian citizen claiming asylum [in the US] should be returned to Colombia\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreno ended the post writing, \u201cComing to America is a privilege, not a right.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Colombians like Fernando, it was devastating.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took us completely by surprise,\u201d he noted, adding the thought of returning to Colombia now, after several years living and working in the US, and with the security situation in the country\u00a0increasingly fragile<\/a>, is \u201ccomplicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to recent data from TRAC Reports, in fiscal year 2026,\u00a0Colombia ranked fifth<\/a>\u00a0among nationalities with the most deportation orders issued by U.S. judges, totaling 36,651 removals. Mexico remained at the top of the list, followed by Honduras, Guatemala and Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Among those detained was Franklin Humberto Coral Garrido, better known as Beto Coral, an online activist who was targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for his criticism of de la Espriella. In a June 16 memo, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote Coral\u2019s online activism \u201cundermines U.S. foreign policy interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coral, who came to the US in 2015 and, like Fernando, had a pending asylum case, was deported to Colombia on July 16 after spending one month in ICE detention.<\/p>\n

For Fernando, his case is emblematic of the administration\u2019s weaponization of the U.S. immigration system. \u201cWe have a right to our opinions,\u201d he insisted.<\/p>\n

The July 14 killing of 26-year-old Colombian Joan Sebasti\u00e1n Guerrero in Biddeford Maine by an ICE agent during a traffic stop adds to the growing sense of unease among Colombians here. Guerrero, who was not the target of the operation, was killed in front of his three-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n

For Fernando, who works as a delivery driver, the fear of being pulled over by ICE is a daily reality.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also taken note of de la Espriella\u2019s silence in the wake of Guererro\u2019s death, in contrast to repeated demands by outgoing President Gustavo Petro that Colombian nationals slated for deportation be treated humanely and \u201cwith dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that was a very good thing Petro did,\u201d acknowledged Fernando, adding, \u201che has always cared about the issue of migration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reflecting on his vote, Fernando points back to Trump\u2019s 2024 election win and the historic inroads made among Latino voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust like Latinos did when electing Donald Trump \u2026 I did the same. I voted for Abelardo because of some of his proposals,\u201d said Fernando, \u201cbut without the intention that those same policies would capture and sweep people like me up.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ByPeter Schurmann Aug 4, 2026 On...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-a","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83046,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83045\/revisions\/83046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}