Rubio says Colombia activist’s arrest did not undermine U.S. foreign policy

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the criticism from Beto Coral, a Colombian activist and online influencer, had crossed into a foreign-policy issue for the United States. That argument landed as U.S. immigration authorities detained Coral, whose full name is Franklin Humberto Coral Garrido, in Arizona on June 16 and later held him in Phoenix while a judge reviewed whether he could be deported.

Coral had lived in the United States since 2015 and was described in Colombian reporting as an asylum seeker with more than 450,000 followers on X and 280,000 subscribers on YouTube. The Colombian Embassy in Washington said it activated consular assistance and was in contact with U.S. authorities, while the Consulate General of Colombia in Los Angeles followed the case. Coral also said in an audio message that he had no criminal charges and that his documents were valid.

The arrest quickly became a political fight in both capitals. President Gustavo Petro called it “political persecution” and said Coral’s detention was tied to his opposition to Abelardo de la Espriella, the Colombian presidential candidate who has openly backed Donald Trump. Petro told Colombia’s foreign ministry to seek Coral’s release, and the dispute sharpened as De la Espriella moved toward a runoff against leftist candidate Iván Cepeda after winning 10.3 million votes in the first round, compared with Cepeda’s 9.7 million, according to reporting cited by EFE.

Coral had recently campaigned in Miami against De la Espriella, including protests and online videos that accused the candidate of links to Alex Saab and David Murcia Guzmán. Daniel Coronell, the journalist who first publicized the case, said Coral phoned him during the arrest and claimed the agents told him the order came directly from Rubio. Bernie Moreno, the Republican senator of Colombian origin, mocked Coral on X and defended the detention, arguing that a person seeking asylum should not use that protection to attack the government that sheltered him.

Coral’s family history has added another layer to the controversy. EL PAÍS reported that he is the son of Humberto Coral Caballero, a police captain who took part in the operation that killed Pablo Escobar in 1993 and was killed the following year. Coral was born in Medellín, and video shared by Coronell showed him with a minor child at the time of the arrest. The case has intensified tension between the Petro government and Washington, while renewing the broader fight over whether immigration powers can be used in ways that chill political speech tied to a foreign election.