Meet Beto Coral, Activist Targeted by ICE for Criticism of Trump-Backed Colombian President-Elect

A prominent Colombian activist left the United States after he was arrested by immigration agents and detained for over a month in an ICE jail. Franklin Humberto Coral Garrido, known as Beto Coral, was a frequent online critic of far-right President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella, a Trump ally, in the run-up to Colombia’s election.

In a memo obtained by The New York Times in June, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pushed for Coral’s deportation and accused the activist of undermining U.S. foreign policy and interfering in Colombia’s democratic process by supporting current Colombian leftist President Gustavo Petro and attacking de la Espriella.

Coral arrived in the United States in 2015 on a tourist visa and had a pending asylum application.

“The treatment I received was inhumane,” says Coral of his time in ICE custody. He says that while in detention, he was beaten, denied food and water, and kept in solitary confinement.

“The problem that Marco Rubio and the Trump administration has,” explains Elizabeth Shaw, one of Coral’s attorneys, is that Coral’s opinion “is against what they are in support of.”