The US State Department announced on Thursday, October 22, 2026, that it was imposing visa restrictions on 21 people in Colombia and 40 in Bolivia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited alleged corruption and narcotrafficking.
Existing visas held by those targeted will be revoked. New applications will be rejected.
The announcement covered more than 60 public officials and prominent figures. Rubio said the policy targets conduct, regardless of political affiliation.
“These measures target foreign nationals who, through corruption and drug trafficking, have undermined democratically elected governments in our hemisphere, regardless of their political affiliation”
The policy reaches targeted people and their immediate families
The restrictions apply to foreign nationals accused of undermining a democratically elected government through corruption or narcotrafficking. The policy also covers their immediate family members.
The department’s September framework relies on Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. It allows visa action against people the department says meet those criteria. The October announcement applied that framework to people in Colombia and Bolivia.
The consequences differ by visa status. A current visa can be revoked, while a person without one may be refused if they apply.
Colombia’s named targets include an oil executive and lawmakers
Among the Colombians identified is Ricardo Roa Barragan, former president of state oil company Ecopetrol and a campaign manager for former president Gustavo Petro, who left office in August. The list also includes Yahir Acuña, mayor of Sincelejo, the capital of Sucre Department on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
Senator Wadith Alberto Manzur and Congresswoman Karen Manrique are also named. Manrique is detained in Colombia in connection with the National Unit for Risk Management corruption case.
Former senators Julio Chagui and Liliana Esther Bita, along with former congressman José Ignacio Mesa Betancurt, are among the other identified Colombians. The announcement named some people in the larger group, not everyone included in the total.
Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella celebrated the action against Manzur on social media. The material did not identify the political affiliations of all those targeted.
Bolivia’s named group spans prosecutors, judges and police officials
The Bolivian group includes former attorney general Juan Lanchipa Ponce and former prosecutors Félix Balderas and Armando Rojas. Magistrate Julio César Porras, who was responsible for the Controlled Substances Unit in Santa Cruz, is also named.
Porras and Balderas were removed from their duties on the Tuesday before the announcement. Fifty-eight other Public Ministry employees were removed at the same time.
Other named judicial figures include Aldo Quezada, president of the Departmental Court of Justice of Santa Cruz, and Judge Julio Alba. Bolivia’s Supreme Court president, Romer Saucedo, urged the two to “submit to the relevant investigation, without enjoying any privilege due to their status as judicial servants,” in a social media message.
The list also includes deputies Rafael López and Rolando Pacheco; Freddy Pereira, commander of the Police of Tarija; and Óscar Ortiz, director of the General Personal Identification Service. Katherine Calderón, a former general director of Migration, and Fernando Velasco, former head of airport security for the Special Force to Combat Drug Trafficking at Viru Viru International Airport, were also named.
The September round had already reached four countries
The current action follows a September round covering 27 Latin American officials, former officials and family members. The group included Bolivia’s Attorney General Roger Mariaca, more than 20 other Bolivian prosecutors and judges, two Colombians, two Ecuadorians and one Peruvian judge.
In Bolivia, 12 people were identified as current visa holders whose visas were revoked. Nine more without current visas would be denied visas if they applied. The Colombian targets included businessman Euclides Antonio Torres Romero, whose conglomerate operates mainly in energy, traffic signals and public lighting, and Senator Martha Isabel Peralta Epieyu, affiliated with Historic Pact and the Alternative Indigenous and Social Movement.
The earlier action also covered two Ecuadorians and Juan Carlos Nunez Matos, a judge on the Lima First Circuit Constitutional Court in Peru. The September policy was announced under Section 212(a)(3)(C) and described as support for Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, participants in the Shield of the Americas initiative.
The State Department said the framework fulfilled commitments made at the Doral Summit and reaffirmed in the Shield of the Americas leaders’ statement of September 22. Thomas “Tommy” Pigott, a spokesman for the Office of the Spokesman, issued the statement dated September 28, 2026.
The September statement accused Mariaca of abusing his position by soliciting and accepting bribes to facilitate narcotrafficking and helping violent criminals evade justice. It said his actions endangered President Donald Trump’s efforts against narcoterrorism and undermined democratic institutions Bolivia was working to strengthen as a Shield participant.
Mariaca rejected the restrictions as political pressure on his office and said he would continue investigations, including a sensitive case involving Argentine political strategist Fernando Cerimedo, who advised President Rodrigo Paz’s campaign. At a news conference in Sucre, he said: “The work we have been doing has not pleased certain political sectors, both inside and outside our country.” He added: “No political pressure, national or international, can stand in the way of establishing the facts, which must be investigated.”
Lawmakers elected Mariaca to a six-year term in 2024 under Bolivia’s previous left-wing government. He had faced criticism over his office’s handling of drug trafficking cases. As a prosecutor in eastern Santa Cruz, he was in the region when alleged Uruguayan drug kingpin Sebastián Marset escaped a police operation in 2023. Marset is now in US custody.
Both Colombia and Bolivia participate in Trump’s Shield of the Americas initiative to combat drug cartels in Latin America. During September, Rubio visited Colombia, Ecuador and Peru and pledged US support for efforts against drug and human trafficking. Leaders in those countries had complained that people targeted in the earlier round were hindering crime-fighting efforts.
Pigott’s September statement called the policy “a durable mechanism that allows the United States to act quickly, in coordination with our partners, as evidence develops.”
