Petro Demands Release of Colombian Activist Held as 'Political Prisoner' by ICE

Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Saturday demanded that US President Donald Trump “tell the people of Colombia” where activist Beto Coral is after he was detained by immigration agents this week following his criticism of Trump’s preferred candidate in Colombia’s presidential election.

Coral, a progressive activist and Petro supporter, was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at his Phoenix home on Tuesday, immediately after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a memo claiming that Coral “has used his presence in the United States to conduct political activity in support of the Petro government.”

His family says they now have no idea where he is.

Coral is the son of Humberto Coral Caballero, a police captain who was involved in the 1993 operation that located and killed the notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. His father was murdered just four months later, in a case that remains unsolved.

The younger Coral immigrated to the US in 2015 on a six-month tourist visa. He later applied for asylum in the US, saying he faced danger from drug cartels in Colombia.

Although the US Department of Homeland Security has also accused him of overstaying his visa for 10 years, the State Department memo pointed to his political activity.

“Allowing [Coral] to remain in the United States,” Rubio's memo said, “undermines US foreign policy interests in Colombia’s democratic processes and signals that foreign nationals may use US platforms to conduct politically motivated disinformation campaigns and litigation targeting foreign democratic actors without consequence.”

The memo reflects the State Department policy of seeking to deport foreign nationals explicitly over their expression of political viewpoints at odds with the Trump administration, particularly pro-Palestinian student activists such as Mahmoud Khalil of Columbia University and Rümeysa Öztürk of Tufts University.

Rubio’s memo also noted that Coral had opposed the right-wing presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, a former criminal defense lawyer supported by Trump, who has pledged to “disembowel the left” if he takes power in Colombia’s presidential runoff on Sunday.

Petro has accused De la Espriella of being a “defender of narcoparamilitaries,” citing his legal defense of armed right-wing groups tied to massacres, assassinations, forced displacement, and drug trafficking.

In a message from detention, Coral said that his arrest "is a sign of what can happen" if De la Espriella, whom he described as a "defender of mobsters and criminals," becomes president of Colombia.

According to The New York Times, Coral’s arrest is the first known instance in which Rubio has targeted an immigrant in the US over their advocacy in a foreign election.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, called it an example of "free speech under attack" by the Trump administration.

"Marco Rubio just had a man arrested and jailed, and is seeking to deport him, because he publicly criticized a presidential candidate in Colombia that Donald Trump would prefer to be elected," he said, adding that Coral "committed no crimes and had an asylum application pending."

The 40-year-old Coral was arrested after returning to his Phoenix home with his 12-year-old son. Coral had recently been in Miami, where he said he'd filed a lawsuit against De la Espriella, whom he'd previously accused of illegally recording phone calls between the two.

Coral's former partner, Tatiana Camacho, told the Times that De la Espriella had contacted Coral multiple times "so he would retract his statements.”

US Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said Tuesday that Coral’s detention pointed to “coordination between American officials and Colombian political actors in this arrest—that would amount to our government aiding and abetting transnational repression.”

McGovern noted that he had helped lead legislation cosponsored by Rubio in 2023 to counter transnational political repression while Rubio was still a senator.

"Now he’s abetting it himself," McGovern said, "by weaponizing the law to punish free speech and help Trump’s right-wing buddies."

A Friday post from Coral’s X account stated that he had recently been transferred between facilities by immigration authorities, that his family does not know his current whereabouts, as his name no longer appears in the official ICE locator system.

On Saturday, Petro said he “demands” that Trump “tell the people of Colombia where [Beto] Coral is,” referring to him in another post as a “political prisoner.”

“Solely because of the political support that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave to Abelardo de la Espriella, a defender of the genocidal narcoparamilitary forces against the Colombian people, who suggested his capture, he has been detained and beaten by the US government, separating him from his family,” Petro said. “[Beto] Coral sought asylum in the US because drug trafficking mafias could have murdered him 10 years ago, and the anti-migrant attitude toward South Americans has not even allowed for his authorization.”

“What will the members of Colombia’s Public Force—which carries out the world’s largest cocaine seizures—think if the states that benefit from them reject and torture even the sons of those fallen in combat against drug trafficking?” Petro asked.

He continued: “I request the solidarity of the governments of the world and the world’s human rights organizations to free the prisoner of conscience [Beto] Coral.”