(I leave for Colombia in the morning, so I’m churning out a bunch of end-of-month posts tonight. It’s more fun than packing.)

U.S.-Mexico Border

• Adolfo Flores, “Why Did the Border Patrol Shoot Claudia Gomez?” (BuzzFeed, August 29, 2018).

The Border Patrol shooting of a young Guatemalan immigrant remains a mystery three months later. A phone video provides the only clue about what happened

• Ron Nixon, “High Profits and Misery Meet at Door of Smugglers’ Stash Houses” (The New York Times, August 27, 2018).

“You can be in a neighborhood where kids are playing in the streets, and there could be a stash house next door”

• Rafael Carranza, “Trump’s Border Wall Prototypes Fail Design Requirements and Are Riddled With Deficiencies” (The Arizona Republic, August 22, 2018).

The conclusions listed in the report point to serious challenges in building some, if not all, of the prototypes as they were erected in San Diego, because of structural issues in their design or with construction

• David Yaffe-Bellany, Jay Root, Juan Luis Garcia Hernandez, “Asylum-Seekers Say They Cross the Border Illegally Because They Don’t Think They Have Other Options” (The Texas Tribune, August 17, 2018).

Crossing the Rio Grande has had certain procedural advantages. Immigrants who enter the country illegally are generally eligible to be released on bond, while those who present themselves at the bridges stay in detention

• Ari Shapiro, “Photos: What It’s Like on Both Sides of the U.S.-Mexico Border’s Busiest Crossing” (National Public Radio, August 8, 2018).

NPR recently spent time on both sides of the border, where immigration is part of everyday life

• Southwest Border Security: CBP Is Evaluating Designs and Locations for Border Barriers but Is Proceeding Without Key Information (Washington: U.S. Government Accountability Office, August 6, 2018).

Bolivia

• Caroline Stauffer, “Native Peoples Sour on Morales, Bolivia’s First Indigenous President” (Reuters **, August 24, 2018).

After clashes with native groups over development, and controversial maneuvers to stay in office, indigenous voters are now turning against him

Colombia

• Rafael Croda, “Viaje al Corazon de la Oficina, la Heredera del Cartel de Medellin” (Proceso (Mexico), El Tiempo (Colombia), August 28, 2018).

En entrevista, habla un vocero autorizado de la organización delictiva más poderosa de Colombia

• Juanita León, “Ivan Duque Inaugura su Uribismo 2.0” (La Silla Vacia (Colombia), August 8, 2018).

El discurso del nuevo presidente terminó con una invitación a todos los colombianos a hacer un Pacto por el futuro de Colombia. Y la pregunta del millón, es cómo se hará ese pacto y con quiénes y si eso incluye a Macías y a los que piensan como él

Guatemala

• Hector Silva Avalos, Steven Dudley, “President Jimmy Morales’ (and Guatemala’s) ‘Original Sin’” (InsightCrime, August 24, 2018).

The circle is nearly closed. Jimmy Morales, who won power precisely because of his predecessor’s corruption, is now facing down accusations that he committed some of the same transgressions. It was a biblical lesson he apparently missed

Haiti

• Jacqueline Charles, Jay Weaver, “How the Dea Let One of Haiti’s Biggest Drug Busts Slip Through Its Fingers” (The Miami Herald, August 17, 2018).

The bungling of the investigation in Haiti didn’t even come to light until two veteran DEA agents filed whistleblower complaints that have triggered a U.S. Justice Department investigation into the effectiveness of the DEA’s drug-fighting efforts

Mexico

• Marcela Turati, “El “No al Perdon” se Extiende en los Foros por la Paz” (Proceso (Mexico), August 16, 2018).

Las madres agraviadas manifiestan su desconcierto sobre el tema de la amnistía y el perdón a los criminales. Así lo expresaron en los dos primeros foros realizados la semana pasada

• James Fredrick, “Mexico’s New President Has a Radical Plan to End the Drug War” (Vox, August 15, 2018).

AMLO and his advisers have proposed sending drug war-fighting soldiers back to their barracks, pardoning nonviolent drug offenders, and boosting social programs

Nicaragua

• Gioconda Belli, “How Daniel Ortega Became a Tyrant” (Foreign Affairs, August 29, 2018).

In April, their fiction of a prosperous and politically stable Nicaragua collapsed like a house of cards

• Jon Lee Anderson, ““Fake News” and Unrest in Nicaragua” (The New Yorker, August 27, 2018).

A senior U.S. official whom I spoke to feared that Ortega was using death squads to silence his opposition. “We’ve moved from a climate of fear to one of terror”

• “Nicaragua Sitiada por Ortega y por Que la Izquierda Teme Criticar a la Izquierda” (Plaza Publica (Guatemala), August 14, 2018).

Cuatro estudiantes nicaragüenses que la semana pasada estuvieron en Guatemala participando de una actividad académica, explican desde sus posiciones en resistencia, los orígenes de la crisis política que vive Nicaragua desde abril pasado

• Kirk Semple, “‘There’s No Law’: Political Crisis Sends Nicaraguans Fleeing” (The New York Times, August 7, 2018).

There is already a sense that order is fragile, and that an anarchic slide has already begun

Peru

• Ricardo León, “Vraem: La Guerra en Circulos” (El Comercio (Peru), August 21, 2018).

La reciente muerte de un suboficial de la FAP en el Vraem revela la intensa disputa territorial entre las Fuerzas Armadas y Sendero Luminoso. Cabecilla terrorista ‘Antonio’ busca posicionarse en zonas de producción de droga