A US deportation flight carrying 88 Braziliani, many shackled and handcuffed, faced multiple technical issues and extreme heat, leading to a passenger revolt and intervention by Brazilian authorities. This incident sparked international condemnation and a diplomatic standoff between the US and Brazil, with Colombian President Gustavo Petro also rejecting US deportation flights.
Temperatures were rising inside the plane. Eighty-eight Brazilian deportees, most of them handcuffed and shackled, were getting restless last Friday under the watch of US immigration agents. The passenger jet, dealing with repeated technical problems, was stuck on the tarmac in a sweltering city in the Amazon rainforest.Brazilians who were deported from US walk through the departure lounge at Eduardo Gomes International Airport in Manaus, Amazonas state, on January 25, 2025.
It was those complaints about the Brazilian flight that President Gustavo Petro of Colombia was replying to on social media when he announced on Sunday that his government had turned away two deportation flights from the United States. That set off duelling threats of tariffs between the United States and Colombia that ultimately ended in Petro backing down.
The Pew Research Center estimated there were 11 million immigrants living in the US without legal permission in 2022, but more recent estimates put the population at almost 14 million. This includes around 4 million Mexicans, 2.1 million Central Americans, 230,000 Brazilians and 190,000 Colombians. US officials have largely ignored those requests, according to Brazilian officials and academics who track the issue. The US government has deported about 7700 Brazilians on roughly 95 flights since 2020, according to Brazilian officials. On many of those flights, ICE agents have chained Brazilian deportees at the hands and feet, officials said.
The flight, operated by a charter airline, GlobalX Air, had problems from the start. The passengers said that on the first attempt, the plane struggled to take off. After a mechanic worked on a turbine, it departed, but passengers were uneasy. Some deportees said that in the muggy cabin, the shackled men began pushing their way up the aisles, physically pressing up against ICE agents standing in the way. Agents and passengers shouted and pushed one another, and several deportees said they were struck. Then some passengers opened the emergency exits.
Politics Human Rights DEPORTATION BRAZIL US COLOMBIA DIPLOMACY HUMAN RIGHTS IMMIGRATION
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