A brief, fiery showdown between the president of the United States and the president of Colombia ended by Sunday night — when the Colombian government agreed to accept all deportation flights sent by the Trump administration, including military flights.
But the effects lingered in American airports until Wednesday.
In a statement on Sunday night, the White House press secretary said that some of Mr. Trump’s penalties on Colombia — including so-called enhanced inspections at American ports of entry — would remain in effect “until the first planeload of Colombian deportees is successfully returned.”
But even after that planeload arrived at El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá, the Colombian capital, on Tuesday, passengers were caught up in long and tedious inspections at airports in Florida.
As late as Tuesday night, passengers who arrived on direct flights from Colombian cities such as Medellín reported spending up to four hours waiting in customs lines at Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
The passengers said they were placed in a separate line — regardless of their citizenship — and subjected to bag checks and screenings in which they were questioned about the motives for their travel and their connection to the Colombian government.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it had received orders on Wednesday to stop conducting these extra inspections of people, flights and cargo arriving from Colombia.
A spokeswoman for the agency, Patricia Driscoll, declined to comment on the delays or on the apparent lag in halting so-called secondary inspections.
Ms. Driscoll said in a statement that the agency was tasked with “enforcing numerous laws at our Nation’s ports of entry on behalf of a variety of other Government agencies.”
The Colombian Foreign Ministry did not respond to questions about the issues at American airports or why they lasted until Wednesday, or whether the topic had been raised with the United States.
The ministry only shared a news release saying that “following the arrival of flights carrying the first group of deported Colombians,” officials from both countries were meeting in Washington this week to define the “next steps to be taken.” A spokeswoman for the U.S. secretary of state’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
One passenger hampered by the long inspections was Leslie Appleby, who stopped in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday on her way to Tampa, Fla., after a trip to Colombia. She said she and her husband had missed their connection as they waited for two hours.
Ms. Appleby said in a phone interview that the two, who are both Canadian, had been visiting her son and grandchild in Medellín.
After their bags were checked by X-ray, they were escorted to a room, she said. “There were a hundred people and we realized everyone from our flight was there,” she said, adding that many people were “disgruntled.”
A Colombian man traveling to Miami from Bogotá on Tuesday, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Juan, because he said he had not been authorized by his employer to speak on the matter, said that all passengers on the flight were taken aside for a “secondary inspection.”
“It was terrible. The entire plane was sent into a room, from the pilot to the last passenger, even the Americans,” he said. “They sent people back to Bogotá.”
Sebastián Arenas Castro, a business owner and a frequent traveler between Medellín and Florida, said in a phone interview that he would avoid direct flights to the United States from Colombia until it was clear the issues had fully been resolved.
“It was all over the news in Colombia on Tuesday. Pilots were talking about it, passengers who had their bags checked,” Mr. Arenas said.
A dual American and Colombian citizen, Mr. Arenas said he owned two restaurants and Airbnb rentals in Medellín, as well as a graphic design business and parking businesses in the United States.
“The verbiage that’s coming from the American government has frankly spooked a load of legitimate Colombians who travel regularly to the United States,” Mr. Arenas said. “There’s quite a few people who have business operations in both places, and to slow that down messes with business in both places,” he said.
On Monday, some Colombian travelers had been promptly deported after they landed in the United States, including World Bank employees, because of a travel ban and visa restrictions that President Trump also imposed on Colombians a day earlier.
By Wednesday afternoon, travelers arriving in the United States from Colombia were saying that they were no longer being pulled aside for extra inspections.
