THE HERALDO knew the story of Javier Alexander Torrealba Acevedoa Venezuelan who entered Colombia in June 2021 through Ipiales (Nariño) with the idea of reuniting with his family, who had been in the country since March 2020.
“In order not to leave Colombia irregularly, we went to the Migration offices in the town of Ibague (Tolima), where they gave us an act of commitment to voluntarily leave the country in order not to have future problems when entering Colombia, “explained the man through an email that he sent to the immigration entity.
After that episode, the family went to the airport in Medellín with the intention of traveling to Mexico, but the airline prevented them from traveling, because the passports of the man’s two sons were expired.
“Upon returning to the hotel, a person told us that it was possible to travel through the Barranquilla airport with expired passports since he knew someone in that city who could help us,” the man said in the letter.
The family arrived in Barranquilla and contacted the person. “He told us that he had to take the passports to consult with a person he knew from Immigration, who had told him that it was possible to travel with an expired passport, as long as they paid $800 for the airline to let them pass.”
The man describes that he accepted the deal and upon arrival at the Ernesto Cortissoz airport the liaison person told him that he had to give him $200 more because the passports They put the stamps on it.
“I asked them why they put a stamp on the passports if I had a document to be able to leave the country which they had given me at Immigration in Ibagué for which I did not pay anything, then the person calls me and tells me that I cannot travel because the airline does not allow traveling with an expired passport, I ask him to return the 1,000 dollars and he tells me that to return the money I have to hand over the passports so that they cancel the stamps, but I did not give him the passports because they could keep the documents and they could take more money from me to return them to me,” said Torrealba Acevedo.
After this inconvenience, the man said that he decided to return to Venezuela with his family to renew his children’s passports.
“We decided to go by land and arrive at Immigration of umbrella The person who attended us asked us what had happened, why the passports had stamps and did not appear in the system, so I told him what had happened and he told us that he was going to do everything possible to help us in our case because what they did to us is not he had to do and apologized on behalf of Migración Colombia.”
The family left it for granted in the email that their only intention is to “seek the best possible solution” and they stressed that they are grateful to the people who, in good faith, helped them resolve their case so that they would later be allowed to enter Colombia to use the country as a bridge to another destination.
This story, as learned by this medium, is fully known by the immigration authorities, since the officials in Paraguachón left a record of what happened.