His family says they now have no idea where he is.
Marjan is a son Humberto Corral Caballeroa police officer who participated in the 1993 operation in which notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar was located and killed. His father was murdered just four months later, in a case that remains unsolved.
The younger Corral immigrated to the United States in 2015 on a six-month tourist visa. He later applied for asylum in the United States, saying he was at risk from drug gangs in Colombia.
Although the US Department of Homeland Security also charged him with overstaying his visa by 10 years, the State Department memo referred to his political activity.
“Allow [Coral] Rubio’s memo said that remaining in the United States undermines US foreign policy interests in Colombia’s democratic processes and suggests that foreign nationals may use US platforms to conduct politically motivated disinformation campaigns and lawsuits targeting foreign democratic actors without consequences.
The memo reflects the State Department’s policy of explicitly seeking the deportation of foreign nationals for expressing political views inconsistent with the Trump administration, particularly pro-Palestinian student activists such as Mahmoud Khalil of Columbia University and Rumisa Ozturk of Tufts University.
Rubio’s memo also noted that Corral opposed right-wing presidential candidate Abelardo de la Esprilla, a former criminal defense lawyer backed by Trump, who has vowed to “tear the left apart” if he takes power in Colombia’s presidential runoff on Sunday.
He accused Petro de la Espriilla of being an “apologist for drug paramilitaries”, citing his legal defense of the armed right wing. Related groups To massacres, assassinations, forced displacement and drug smuggling.
In a letter from detention, Coral He said He added that his arrest was “an indication of what could happen” if de la Espriilla, whom he described as a “defender of gangsters and criminals,” became president of Colombia.
according to New York TimesCorral’s arrest is the first known case of Rubio targeting an immigrant in the United States over his advocacy in a foreign election.
Aaron Reichlin Melnyk, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, Named It is an example of “free speech under attack” by the Trump administration.
“Marco Rubio just arrested and imprisoned a man, and is seeking his deportation, because he publicly criticized a presidential candidate in Colombia who Donald Trump favors to be elected,” he added, adding that Corral “did not commit any crimes and had a pending asylum application.”
Corral, 40, was arrested after returning to his home in Phoenix with his 12-year-old son. Corral had recently visited Miami, where he said he had filed a lawsuit against De La Esprilla, whom he had previously accused of illegally recording phone calls between the two.
Tatiana Camacho, Corral’s former partner, told the Times that de la Espriilla called Corral several times “so that he would retract his statements.”
US Representative Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) He said On Tuesday, Corral’s arrest indicated “coordination between U.S. officials and Colombian political actors in this arrest — which would amount to aiding and abetting our government’s transnational repression.”
McGovern noted that he helped lead legislation Rubio co-sponsored the 2023 Congress to Counter Transnational Political Repression while Rubio was still a senator.
“Now he is inciting it himself, by weaponizing the law to punish free speech and aid Trump’s right-wing comrades,” McGovern said.
Friday post from Coral X account male that he had recently been transferred between facilities by immigration authorities, and that his family does not know his current whereabouts, because his name no longer appears in ICE’s official GPS system.
Saturday Petro He said He “demands” Trump “tell the people of Colombia where [Beto] coral is ” In reference To him in another position as a “political prisoner”.
“Only because of the political support given by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Abelardo de la Esprilla, the apologist for the paramilitary genocide against the Colombian people, who proposed his arrest, was he arrested, beaten by the US government, and separated from his family,” Petro said. “[Beto] Corral sought asylum in the United States because the drug trafficking mafia would have killed him ten years ago, and the anti-immigrant attitude toward South American citizens would not even allow him asylum.
“What would members of Colombia’s public force – which carries out the world’s largest cocaine seizures – think if the countries benefiting from them rejected and tortured even the children of those who fell in the fight against drug trafficking?” Petro asked.
He continued: “I ask for the solidarity of world governments and international human rights organizations to release prisoners of conscience.” [Beto] Coral.
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