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🟥Week of December 16: I’m shutting down most comms and meetings to finish a big project in the last few days before the holidays. I will be buried in that and difficult to contact. After that, I'm off work until January 6.
This week DHS released its latest Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, offering data through 2019. It includes a table (Table 41, use the Excel version to get all years) of how many citizens ICE sent back to each country.
Look what happened to removals of Cubans and Venezuelans since Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant administration took office in 2017. Note that this doesn’t count Venezuelans whom the administration, we’ve now learned, has been stealthily sending back to Caracas via third countries.
Recall that despite this, fuzzy initial data show Trump beating Joe Biden among Cuban-American and Venezuelan-American early voters in Miami-Dade, Florida, where much of this community lives.
Why? Because in a dirty social-media-heavy campaign reminiscent of Colombia’s 2016 peace plebiscite, the Trump campaign and its surrogates have successfully implanted the idea that Joe Biden is a communist who would support the regimes that they fled. It’s amazing that they’ve gotten away with this while spiking deportations back to those same regimes.
Syracuse University’s TRAC Immigration project, which obtains and presents official data, just posted information about asylum decisions in U.S. immigration courts in 2020. They found that the courts granted asylum or other relief in only 28.4 percent of cases during the 2020 fiscal year, down from 45.4 percent in 2016, the last year of the Obama administration.
Also remarkable, when you dig into their database, is the disparity among immigration courts. Though judges are following the same laws and guidelines, they’re many, many times more willing to grant asylum in New York or San Francisco than they are in Houston or Atlanta. Nobody has a great explanation for why that is.
Find this chart, and a few dozen other border and migration data visualizations, at bit.ly/wola_border, a continually updated PDF document.
Here’s a conversation with someone whom I admire a lot. Eddie Canales was concerned about rising numbers of migrants dying of dehydration and exposure while trying to circumvent Border Patrol highway checkpoints, so he founded and runs the South Texas Human Rights Center in the town of Falfurrias, about 80 miles north of the border. The Center puts out aid stations and assists forensic experts who try to identify remains and notify their loved ones.
Here’s the descriptive text, on WOLA’s website, for this episode with Eddie Canales:
A discussion with Eduardo “Eddie” Canales, founder and director of the South Texas Human Rights Center in Falfurrias, Texas.
Falfurrias is in Brooks County, an area of ranchland 80 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. It is also one of the deadliest places for migrants. Dozens each year get lost while trying to walk around checkpoints that Border Patrol has placed on highways, and end up dying of dehydration and exposure in the south Texas heat. The South Texas Human Rights Center works to prevent this, putting out dozens of water and aid stations. This involves negotiations and relationship-building with ranchers in an area where most land is private property. It also involves cooperating with efforts to identify the remains and alert relatives in the deceased migrants’ home countries.
Many times a year Eddie, and the technicians with whom he cooperates, help give some closure to parents, spouses, and children who don’t know what happened to a loved one who disappeared after emigrating to the United States. Doing that is expensive—it involves DNA sampling, forensic expertise, and maintenance of databases—and funds are insufficient.
Too often, resource-poor counties like Brooks have had to bear much of the cost. The remains of at least 7,500 people have been found near the border, on U.S. soil, since 2000.
And the crisis may be getting worse. The pandemic economy is leading more single adults to try to cross into the United States. Most of them are seeking to avoid being apprehended. Trying not to be apprehended means going through places like Brooks County, or deserts elsewhere along the border. Just this week, media in Arizona are reporting the largest number of migrant remains since 2013. And the year isn’t over.
The work of humanitarian workers and advocates like Eddie Canales is more important than ever. Join the Beyond the Wall campaign now to learn more.
John Kurc photo at High Country News. Caption: “Guadalupe Canyon is a remote, rugged area in the Southwest where the Trump administration is currently racing to complete construction of a border wall.”
In the last year, Bolivia’s democracy suffered as partisan clashes filled its streets and mistrust in government grew. And yet it pulled off a calm, uncontested election
Urabá, el Caso 04, es probablemente el más complejo de esos tres. La JEP espera que el alto oficial (r) pueda aportar en la construcción de verdad de este episodio de la guerra
Tanto la Cancillería como el embajador Santos han explicado que era una actividad no partidista y es parte de su actividad diplomática. Sin embargo, sería conveniente saber si el embajador ha asistido a eventos similares con políticos demócratas
Cuando ocurrieron los hechos, el gobierno de México defendió la actuación de la Guardia Nacional para impedir el paso de la caravana, descartó algún incidente
Within days of the takeover, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador accused the women of being “conservatives” – a common accusation that the centre-left president levels against social movements that he suggests are motivated primarily by undermining his government
Our sacred sites and burial grounds — which hold the deepest significance to our people — have been run over and blown up with a seemingly proud indifference by federal contractors as they rush to build President Donald Trump’s border wall
The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General report focused on the agency’s practice of regulating how many immigrants border agents could allow to enter the US to seek asylum
The expulsions, which appear to number more than 200 over the past eight months, reflect the haphazard nature with which many of the administration’s most aggressive immigration policies have been introduced
Children described being held in frigid rooms, sleeping on concrete floors, being fed frozen food, with little or no access to medical care. Too often, they were subjected to emotional, verbal, and physical abuse by CBP officers
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) family detention center in Karnes City, Texas, is being used exclusively to hold migrant parents and children processed under an emergency pandemic-era policy
Several Caribbean island nations and the United States have come under fire from humanitarian groups and U.S. politicians for deporting Venezuelan migrants and refugees home amid the coronavirus pandemic
I’ll be most reachable in the morning and mid-day. (How to contact me)
I’ve got two border/migration coalition meetings in the afternoon, as well as a conversation with a colleague in Colombia. Before that, I’m finishing a quick bit of writing this morning, then catching up on correspondence and a list of smaller tasks.
Al departamento lo está golpeando la disputa territorial entre las bandas, y la crisis de gobernabilidad por las acusaciones contra su gobernador y de uno de sus dos congresistas
Lo que deja el actual presidente, según activistas y académicos consultados por la Oficina de Washington para América Latina (WOLA), es un vínculo lleno de desconfianza por parte de algunos gobiernos latinoamericanos
The otherwise normal deployment sparked political backlash in Colombia, and in the months since, the Army has been less vocal about the new unit’s whereabouts
El Gobierno Bukele no ha desclasificado información nueva sobre la masacre de El Mozote. Por el contrario, los cartapacios que “desclasificó” el 24 de septiembre en cadena nacional contienen, en su mayoría, copias de informes que el gobierno de Sánchez Cerén remitió
Led more than 40 of their Democratic Senate and House colleagues in demanding that the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) take immediate action
Guatemalan data obtained by The Arizona Republic shows that the U.S. deported nearly 6,000 people during a six-month period from March to September, including 331 who tested positive for COVD-19 after arriving
El presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador defendió la labor del ejército y señaló que en caso de que resultara culpable el general Cienfuegos, es un hecho aislado y “tenemos que cuidar la institución”
Por tratarse de integrantes de la Sedena comisionados a la Guardia Nacional, los seis inculpados por la muerte de una mujer en Chihuahua fueron trasladados a una cárcel militar en Mazatlán
Mexico’s government has expressed “profound discontent” to U.S. officials for not informing their Mexican counterparts of plans to arrest former defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos
“2020 UBC (undocumented border crosser) recoveries are projected to top 200 by the end of the year, placing 2020 within the top three highest years over the 21 years we have been tracking this death category”
The suspension of asylum combined with the introduction of “express deportations,” as migrants call them, accelerated a shift in who is crossing the border illegally
Without doing anything to address the tracking systems employed by federal agencies, the Administration chose to expand the policy nationwide in May 2018
Wolf was asked to respond to a recent status report by the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that said 545 parents remained “unreachable”
A new paper, published on the website of the medical journal “Pediatrics” on Tuesday, calls the federal government’s handling of migrant children at the border “consistent with torture”
In a December 2017 email cited by the report, then-Acting CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told an HHS official who had asked about the surge, “You should have seen a change in the past 10 days or so”
Al menos redoblar el número de escaños provenientes de las filas militares aspira el Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) al postular para los próximos comicios legislativos a 16 personas vinculadas a las Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana
Opposition activist Roland Carreno had been arrested, hours after opposition leader Juan Guaido denounced what he called the “forced disappearance” of the Popular Will party’s coordinator
3,590 Venezuelans had completed their training at the institute until then. Two of them currently hold senior positions in the Government of Nicolás Maduro. And their names consistently appear in the recent report by the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission
Rocío San Miguel, directora de la organización Control Ciudadano, destacó que estas declaraciones están ligadas más al tema propagandístico que a una opción real de compra de material bélico en Venezuela
I was aware that DHS was getting close to completing 400 miles of Trump’s border wall, and was racing to complete that much before the election. So I’d anticipated that there’d be some huge obnoxious campaign event that we’d have to respond to.
When I got wind on Tuesday that a 400-mile commemoration ceremony was planned for today, that seemed to be it. I made the cursor move left-to-right as fast as I could and cranked out these 1,800 words on how much of the wall is actually “new,” what it’s costing us, and how it has harmed the environment, indigenous communities, property rights, foreign relations, checks and balances, and corruption protections.
And then… a nothingburger. This morning, DHS’s “Acting Chad” Wolf and Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Commissioner of CBP Mark Morgan held a lonely event with a few assembled reporters, in the shadow of the wall on an unseasonably cold day in south Texas. It might pick up some minor media attention, but it served more to highlight how little Donald Trump is bothering to talk about the border and migration during his increasingly bizarre re-election campaign.
My “rapid response” may have been a bit too amped up here. But I’m glad I produced this piece, which is a good “cheat sheet” for all that is wrong with Trump’s border wall.
At least Stephen Miller avoids the spotlight. The unconfirmed DHS secretary, “Acting Chad” Wolf, prefers to play the role of a monster in public, telling blatant lies about family separation, then following it up with a vroom-vroom joyride on an ATV.
Joe Biden was first elected to the Senate when I was two years old, and he was never known as a stirring speaker. He still plods through some of this October 27 speech, but it’s the best I’ve seen him.
Given at Warm Springs, Georgia, where FDR died, it’s got much of his usual stump speech in it, but with some reflections—about unity, the reason why people pursue public life, and “who we want to be as a nation”—that are important to hear today.
A week before Election Day, only a candidate with a comfortable lead makes a final sales pitch like this. There are a few passages where he bothers to mention and attack Donald Trump. But much of it is reflective and talking about bigger questions, and those parts are quite strong.
I wouldn’t have even known about this speech had the Trump campaign not put out an excerpt of a few seconds of Biden saying “Why am I doing this? Why? What is my real aim?” He was actually quoting Pope Francis, in one of the strongest parts of his remarks.
He says for those who seek to lead, we would do well to ask ourselves, why am I doing this? Why? What is my real aim? Pope Francis asked the question that anyone who seeks to lead this nation should be able to answer. My answer is this. I run to unite this nation and to heal this nation. I have said that from the beginning as badly necessary. The Bible tells us there is a time to break down and a time to build up. A time to heal. This is that time.
Not as entertaining, perhaps, as the unmasked 100-car pileup that is every Trump rally. But what a contrast.
I’ll be intermittently available and occupied all day. (How to contact me)
Today I’ll be taking part in interviews for WOLA’s next Mexico director. When not in those, I’ll be doing many smaller items that have been pending on my to-do list and should be reachable. Expect a memo sometime today about the border wall.
“He would not pull any punches when it comes to challenging Bolsonaro on issues related to environmental degradation, issues related to corruption and other challenges that the president of Brazil is facing”
Some political strategists say the campaign’s different emphasis also is a response to the 2018 midterms, when Democrats won control of the House of Representatives
“La administración Biden-Harris protegerá nuestra frontera, mientras que asegura la dignidad de los migrantes y defiende su derecho legal a buscar asilo, incluido el fin del programa Quédate en México”
The total number of women known to have been seen by the doctor since 2018 who say they underwent or were pressured to undergo unnecessary treatments has risen to 57
La comisión especial que investiga la intervención policial y militar en Sacaba y Senkata recomendó ayer, en su informe final, iniciar dos juicios de responsabilidades a la presidenta Jeanine Áñez y su gabinete
El exmandatario reaccionó en redes sociales, luego que el lunes cientos de manifestantes marcharan hasta el cuartel de la Octava División de Ejército en la ciudad oriental de Santa Cruz, pidiendo a gritos “auxilio militar”
The two presidents drove out 10,000 Cuban doctors and nurses. They defunded the region’s leading health agency. They wrongly pushed hydroxychloroquine as a cure
Chile
Joshua Frens-String, “Burying Pinochet” (University of Texas at Austin, NACLA, October 28, 2020).
Voters took an important first step toward burying, once and for all, the most significant political relic of the country’s brutal 1973-1990 military dictatorship
En un informe que la Fiscalía le entregó a la JEP, el organismo llamó la atención sobre decisiones que pusieron punto final a denuncias de violaciones y abusos con revictimizaciones inaceptables
Western Union, which handles the lion’s share of the money sent to the island from the United States, said it continues looking for alternatives to maintain the service
El ejército de El Salvador entregó información seleccionada de la masacre de El Mozote, que dejó casi 1.000 muertos durante la guerra civil (1980-1992), al juez responsable de la investigación
Desde el 22 de septiembre guarda prisión en la cárcel para mujeres de Quetzaltenango, acusada de los delitos de sedición, atentado con agravaciones específicas, incendio y robo agravado
“Ellos mandan desde México grandes cantidades de dólares para la siembra de arbustos de coca y las instalaciones de los narcolaboratorios para la producción”, afirmó una fuente de Inteligencia
La Sedena tomó por asalto la Guardia Nacional y violentó la Constitución federal, denunció en tribuna el diputado Mario Rafael González Sánchez, presidente de la Comisión de Seguridad Pública
En erradicación de cultivos ilícitos, en aseguramientos de mariguana, cocaína, goma de opio, heroína, vehículos, aeronaves, armas o personas detenidas, las cuentas que rinde Enrique Peña están por debajo de los números con que concluyó el sexenio de Felipe Calderón
I recall a visit to the Northern Command in the years after the establishment of cooperation. The US personnel I interviewed were almost giddy about the collaboration
Ortega prepara un tridente legislativo por el que también penará con cadena perpetua los delitos de odio y bloqueará la financiación internacional de ONG y organizaciones civiles críticas con su Administración
El domingo, el premier sostuvo que las Fuerzas Armadas no permitirían una ruptura del Estado de Derecho a pocos meses de las elecciones generales del 2021
Within a year of the initial award, the value of the two contracts had more than tripled, to over $3 billion, even though the length of the fence the companies were building had only grown by 62%, to 135 miles
Critics at the time said the Obama-Biden strategy put too much emphasis on security over development. Whether it would have worked remains unknown because of Trump’s abrupt shift in policy
“Ya son más de 12 horas que están desaparecidos el periodista Roland Carreño junto a Yeferson Sarcos y Elías Rodríguez”, escribió este martes en Twitter
El aterrizaje de la aeronave tipo 747 con matrícula EP-FAB, propiedad de la iraní Qeshm Fars Air, se registra cuando son más estrechas las relaciones comerciales
It’s mostly border-related work today. This morning I’m cranking out a statement about the border, recording a podcast about the border, have an internal meeting about the border, and talking to a colleague who works at the border. By mid-afternoon, I’ll be more reachable as I do website updates and research—mostly about Colombia.
He has distanced himself from Mr. Morales, saying the former president’s bid for a fourth term was an “error.” He vowed that Mr. Morales would not have a role in his government
Evo Morales sostuvo que se instalará en la región de Cochambamba, para retomar el activismo sindical en el que se inició en los años 1980, y que se dedicará también a la piscicultura
El Consejero Presidencial para la Estabilización y la Consolidación, Emilio Archila, dijo que la mayoría de los ataques han sido responsabilidad de las disidencias
Se cuenta con 7 aviones Air Tractor – AT802, adaptados recientemente con sofisticadas boquillas para que el líquido caiga directamente sobre los cultivos ilegales
El Gobierno quiere reiniciar las fumigaciones con glifosato, pero necesitará el visto bueno del ministro de Salud, Fernando Ruiz, que en el pasado se opuso rotundamente. ¿Qué hará este?
Los más duros críticos de la Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz acudieron a la Corte Penal Internacional para denunciar falta de garantías. Pero, al mismo tiempo, aspiran a defender las víctimas ante el sistema que descalifican
Ariel Ávila, subdirector de Pares Colombia, aseguró que “durante operativo, en el que, al parecer, murió alias Uriel del Eln, había una niña de 10 años y un niño de 6 años que, al parecer, visitaban a familiar dentro del grupo”
Dos capturas y una orden de detención bastaron para que el Fiscal General considerara esclarecido el caso. Pero detrás de este crimen existe una telaraña de crimen organizado que sigue sin despejarse
The tweet came after Republican congressional candidate Maria Elvira Salazar posted a video on Sunday of her on a video call accepting the endorsement of former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe
Este pronunciamiento se suma a la dura columna de opinión publicada este sábado por ‘CNN’, de dos congresistas demócratas que le piden a los políticos colombianos dejar de intervenir en las elecciones presidenciales
The white sacks of calcium chloride seized on the ranch carried markings the cops had seen many times before—the blue logo of Tetra Technologies Inc., a chemical company based outside Houston
El excomisionado Nacional de Seguridad, Renato Sales Heredia, calificó como una violación a la soberanía nacional y una falta de respeto a los mexicanos la detención del general Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda
In the streets, few can name Democratic candidate Joe Biden, but there’s a general sense that Mexicans are ready to take their chances with someone other than Trump
“He’s bet his presidency on the army and that has been shaken. He has also bet his presidency on not antagonising the US and now the US has delivered a slap in the face”
I’ll be hard to contact today, though there’s a bit of time in the morning. (How to contact me)
The schedule is pretty full today. I’m delivering a lecture, in person but socially distant, at the Inter-American Defense College, this afternoon. After that, I’ve scheduled a couple of interviews. This morning I’ll be “attending” an event put on by WOLA’s Colombia program.
Taking advantage of the proliferation of anti-U.S. governments in Latin America in the first decade of the 21st century, China and Russia have focused on deepening economic ties within the region, while quietly expanding their military footprints
La histórica división entre peronismo y antiperonismo ha dado paso a una fuerte polarización en torno a las figuras de Cristina K y Macri. La pandemia acentuó el fenómeno
A presidential race that many feared would end in uncertainty or violence concluded quietly, allowing Bolivians to hope that a year of turmoil and threats to democracy may be behind them
Su libro Peace and Rural Development in Colombia da cuenta de las contradicciones internas que hubo en la administración de Santos para sacar adelante la Reforma Rural Integral
El juez Carlos Arturo Cuellar, del juzgado segundo administrativa de Pasto, falló a favor de las autoridades colombianas una acción de desacato que había sido elevada por comunidades afro, indígenas y campesinas
Security cooperation topics discussed with Rear Adm. Merino included dismantling transnational criminal organizations, counternarcotics operations, and future military engagements
Desde la desaparición de los jóvenes, Ofraneh ha denunciado la falta de voluntad por parte de las autoridades para dar con el paradero de los jóvenes y esclarecer los hechos
Honduras por medio de la Secretaría de Defensa Nacional (Sedena) ya negocia con las autoridades de Estados Unidos reparar cerca de 30 aeronaves de entrenamiento y ataque ligero para combatir el narcotráfico
El General Gallardo Rodríguez –quien estuvo preso por 10 años [entre 1993 y 2002] por publicar una tesis en la que planteaba regulación de los abusos dentro de la vida castrense– no se muestra extrañado por los señalamientos
A pesar de que el Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM) ha negado públicamente que existan contagios de COVID-19 en sus centros de detención, la Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDH) reveló que, tan solo en la estación migratoria Siglo XXI de Tapachula, Chiapas, hay al menos 19 casos
La defensa de Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán dijo que su defendido ha decidido no cooperar con la Fiscalía estadounidense ni testificar en contra del exsecretario de la Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional
Whether you agree with the Trump administration’s policies or not, his tactics in carrying them out have been extremely effective in a Machiavellian way. Mexico has done almost exactly what Trump has asked. Would a Biden administration be so effective?
Mr. López, who is 49 years old, left the rambling ambassador’s residence, in a quiet, affluent neighborhood in the eastern end of the city, and made his way to Aruba
I’ll be in internal meetings all morning, and have a call with a colleague at the border late in the day. In the afternoon I’ll be at my desk researching a report about Colombia.
On September 11 I helped put together an event with experts from six Latin American countries to discuss the worsening imbalance of civil-military relations throughout the region, and how COVID-19 is complicating things further.
Military officers are occupying civilian government agencies, keeping order, handing out food, enforcing curfews, and just generally becoming a daily part of people’s lives to an extent unseen since the military dictatorships of a decade ago.
This is mainly happening at the behest of civilian presidents, but there is real cause for alarm here, and our presenters made the case very clearly. They did so in Spanish, without translation, as seen in the video at the bottom of this post.
The video at the top of this post, though, is new. My excellent intern Elissa Prieto took highlights from that event and added English subtitles, giving you a fast-moving, 14-minute pulse-taking of this increasingly worrisome trend.
There had been some doubt cast about the real extent of non-consensual surgeries performed on female migrants held at ICE’s Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia. There’s less doubt now., as the Los Angeles Times’s Molly O’Toole reports that 19 women have now come forward. Some of the testimonies here are hard to read.
A team of reporters from Colombia’s La Silla Vacía did months of follow-up, and has confirmed that 222 social leaders were assassinated in the 602 days between President Iván Duque’s August 2018 inauguration and the end of March 2020. They profile the victims by geography, age, gender, ethnicity, and type of activism, finding a significant correlation with claims involving land tenure or coca.
Guatemala’s CICIG is gone, but an office called the Special Anti-Impunity Prosecutor’s Bureau (FECI) is hanging on amid a full-on backlash by corrupt elites. At El Faro, Sandra Cuffe details the FECI’s latest big case: the minister of Communications, Infrastructure and Housing had more than US$15 million stuffed into 22 suitcases.
Pablo Solón, who heads the Fundación Solón in La Paz and is the son of noted Bolivian artist Walter Solón, served as Bolivia’s UN ambassador during Evo Morales’s government, but later distanced himself from Morales. His “supportive of MAS but not in the tank for Evo” perspective on Bolivia’s landslide presidential election outcome is a nuanced must-read. “MAS did not win because of Evo, but in spite of Evo.”
At the Huffington Post, three reporters talk to former diplomats, members of Congress, and others who should know—and they conclude that if Joe Biden wins on November 3, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro “could find himself quickly isolated on the global stage” if he doesn’t change course on climate change.
Tim Steller photo at the Arizona Daily Star. Caption: “More than 100 people demonstrated on both sides of the border in Nogales on Wednesday, part of a coordinated group of pro-asylum events also taking place in Douglas-Agua Prieta and San Diego-Tijuana.”
It is absolutely necessary to fully integrate women into defense and security forces to be successful in the 21st century–to be professional, ready for any mission, and legitimate in the eyes of the population
At least 19 women at a Georgia immigration facility are now alleging that a doctor performed, or pressured them to undergo, “overly aggressive” or “medically unnecessary” surgery without their consent
Warming relations between the United States and Brazil received a boost this week with an update to an existing bilateral trade agreement, along with the commitment of billions of U.S. dollars to boost Brazilian industries
Any new constitution is likely to make Chile more social-democratic. Advocates of the new charter want to introduce the idea of “equality of opportunity”
The protestors demands were myriad: killings of human rights activists and environmental defenders, police brutality and education and pension reforms were some of the issues
Mexico’s Sinaloa, Jalisco Nueva Generacion, Zetas and Beltran Leyva drug cartels are the top buyers and traffickers of cocaine produced by criminal groups in Colombia
At FECI’s request, a judge issued an arrest warrant for José Benito, Minister of Communications, Infrastructure and Housing during the Morales administration. He stands accused of money laundering
DHS treats the U.S border as if it extends south to Guatemala and that it has the authority to police and deport migrants on foreign soil. It is unconscionable
l 22 de octubre estaba programada una audiencia de examinación de diligencias en el proceso contra David Castillo, ex gerente de la empresa Desarrollos Energéticos (DESA)
The so-called Operation Dominion (Operación Dominio), with Honduran and U.S. authorities participating, “has dealt heavy blows to narcotrafficking and organized crime,” the Honduran government said
Más que nunca se hace relevante revisar los alcances de la militarización que, desde que estuvo coordinada por Cienfuegos no operaba solo en las calles en tareas de seguridad, sino también en otras instituciones
Entre 2005 y 2007 ya había comentarios de narcos y de autoridades en los que se señalaba que Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, Secretario de la Defensa Nacional durante el sexenio de Enrique Peña Nieto, se reunía con Arturo Beltrán Leyva
Los agentes del Ministerio Público les dieron carpetazo sin esclarecer lo sucedido, la mayor parte de ellas enviándolas a un archivo “temporal” hasta que pase algo que permita retomarlas
Parte de la disputa por el control de la venta y tráfico de droga entre grupos de la delincuencia organizada que antes eran aliados con el Cartel del Pacifico (o Sinaloa)
McCaffrey told me the arrest was “very odd.” “I would have assumed we would have gone to Mexican authorities before the arrest and say, ’Hey, here’s what we’re up to’”
In the central Mexico state of Guanajuato, the color of the meth or the markings on the package in an addict’s pocket may determine whether he lives or dies
President Trump set the goal about a year ago and, to fulfill it, contractors are building largely on land the federal government already owns, including in areas where illegal border crossings have been relatively low
Sasabe, Mexico, has a couple of convenience stores, but there are no taxis or buses, and most migrants who are dropped here have no money or means to get anywhere else
“It’s cruelty, and separating kids from parents goes against natural rights,” the pope says in the documentary “Francesco.” “It’s something a Christian cannot do. It’s cruelty of the highest form”
I have a few commitments on the calendar, but should mostly be available. (How to contact me)
I have an internal meeting and a couple of meetings with colleagues about border/migration stuff. Otherwise I’m taking up work on a report about Colombia that I’d like to finish quickly.
he constitution introduced by Pinochet remained in force for decades, safeguarding a market-driven economy at a cost of subsidized healthcare, education and pensions
El problema de fondo de desorden interno y falta de liderazgo civil sobre las fuerzas, que es la razón estructural para los múltiples escándalos que han ocurrido este año, sigue intacto
En 2006 la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos condenó al Estado por esa y por la masacre de La Granja, ocurrida meses atrás. ¿En qué el cumplimiento de esas órdenes?
Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities find themselves terrorised by a host of armed criminal groups involved in territorial land disputes, as well as in conflict with government-allied businesses
La movilización pacífica, precedida por la llegada de 8.000 indígenas a Bogotá, desarmó los argumentos de las autoridades sobre infiltración de grupos armados
The announcement came just days after the anti-impunity unit (Fiscalía Especializada Contra la Impunidad — FECI) within the Attorney General’s Office seized 122,351,456 quetzales (around $15.5 million) in cash found in 22 suitcases
Las FF AA tienen que informar al sistema de aviación civil sobre la Ley de Protección de la Soberanía del Espacio Aéreo (LPSEA), sus deberes y derechos para evitar incidentes lamentables
En vigencia el Reglamento de la Ley de Protección de la Soberanía del Espacio Aéreo que además contempla la conformación de un centro especial para intervenir las aeronaves sospechosas
Hoy fue aprobado en el Senado el dictamen que contiene la eliminación de 109 fideicomisos públicos, incluyendo la eliminación de los recursos del Fondo de Ayuda, Atención y Reparación Integral (FAARI) a Víctimas
Emblemáticos en materia de violaciones a los derechos humanos, ambos casos ocurrieron en la administración de Enrique Peña Nieto, quien dio continuidad a la militarización de la seguridad pública
La detención del General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda por agentes de la Administración de Control de Drogas es un evento que deja ver una ruptura crítica en la relación bilateral
Ebbs and flows in migration are common, but after a pandemic that’s taken the lives of thousands in Latin America, border experts expect that upward trend to continue
As long as Beijing needs oil—something of which Venezuela has plenty—it is likely military hardware such as the C-802A will continue to flow to the South American country
A close ally of President Trump quietly met with an associate of President Nicolás Maduro, whom the United States does not recognize as the leader of Venezuela
R2P can only be invoked if it follows the UN Charter, which would require the international community, specifically the UN Security Council, to approve the use of force – a very remote possibility
I had a very long string of six or seven writing deadlines—some things I’ve published or am about to; some things that will come out eventually; some things for internal consumption. All told, about 25,000 words in both languages. It got so intense between last Tuesday and yesterday, I’ve hardly been posting here.
As far as I can tell, that’s over for a little while, and I don’t have meetings on my calendar today. So I’m digging out: unanswered emails, news I’ve missed, things that should be posted here. And revising my workplan for between now and the moments after Election Day. I should be reachable much of the day, for a change.
One of the country’s largest federal agencies has instead publicly promoted immigrants, anarchists and smugglers as more dangerous to the United States than a virus
“He can return to the country whenever he wants, because he’s Bolivian… but in the government it’s me who has to decide who forms a part of the administration and who does not”
The Añez government provided glaring evidence that an opposition government could be even worse than the MAS government whose credibility was in tatters from its own cases of corruption
La seguridad del referéndum de cinco días más, del cual el gobierno ha de ser “garante”, abre algunas preguntas sobre qué tienen pensado hacer y cómo la policía y las Fuerzas Armadas
Casi 20 mil de los 30 mil millones de pesos adicionales que pidió esta justicia serían destinados para proteger víctimas del conflicto armado y testigos de muchas confesiones
Después de una baja histórica en la violencia el año pasado, desde hace un mes volvieron los tiroteos, las ofertas de plata para matar a integrantes de la banda contraria, el aumento de extorsiones y retenciones en algunas zonas del puerto
Las críticas no se han hecho esperar después de que el presidente de Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández Alvarado, se reuniera este lunes en Tegucigalpa, capital de Honduras, con el jefe del Comando Sur de EEUU
En América Latina, en la actualidad solo en Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, México, República Dominicana y Venezuela sus titulares son militares en activo
Hace un año, el 17 de octubre de 2019, el intento de detención de Ovidio Guzmán López, hijo de Joaquín Guzmán Loera y de Griselda López Pérez, desató la ola de violencia más intensa de que se tenga memoria en Sinaloa
López Obrador tendrá la facultad de nombrar a un nuevo Secretario de Seguridad en los días siguientes, y con ello la disyuntiva de militarizar definitivamente
Investigación de Sergio Aguayo y Jacobo Dayán pone sobre la mesa la coincidencia de objetivos entre diversas autoridades y Joaquín Guzmán Loera, “El Chapo”, durante la época más violenta en La Laguna
Al poner en marcha el Complejo Regional de Seguridad Pública en Reynosa, dijo que su administración tiene el respaldo y colaboración de Estados Unidos para combatir al crimen
Many of the more than 1,000 parents separated from their children under the pilot program had already been deported before a federal judge in California ordered that they be found
In September 2020, the Immigration Court recorded 1,133 new MPP cases, up from a low of 136 in May, and the highest since the start of the pandemic in March when 2,282 MPP cases were filed.
I’m reachable for much of the morning and the late afternoon. (How to contact me)
I’m (hopefully) recording a podcast this morning, participating in a mid-day discussion with Colombian colleagues, and may have a border-related meeting in the afternoon. I’m writing an article for a Colombian publication and finalizing a chapter for a book. So, another busy one.
This morning I’ll be giving a long talk about the elections and the state of U.S. policy to a closed-door meeting organized by colleagues in Colombia. I’ll also, if time allows, be updating our database with the fiscal year 2020 border numbers that CBP released yesterday, and producing a quick memo. I’ve got meetings with two border/migration coalitions that will last much of the afternoon. This evening is the annual Institute for Policy Studies’ Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards, for which I was on the selection panel.
That’s all to say I’m pretty engaged all day and will be difficult to contact. Tomorrow I’ll be freer.
This was a hard one to write, it took about two and a half weeks to crank out 3,000 words, even though nearly all the research was already in my database.
The main reason is in the middle of it: the bulleted list of CBP and Border Patrol offenses that have happened so far in 2020, which I copy below.
It was just so damn grim and painful to point out the horrors being committed on U.S. soil, by a U.S. agency, by people who—for the most part—we’d probably genuinely like if we met them at a bar or on line at a supermarket.
Beyond this list, the commentary is about the big challenges that lie ahead in changing the organizational culture of our border and migration agencies. Please read it.
While past abuses like “family separation” and “kids in cages” shocked much of the nation, evidence of a perverse institutional culture persists in the 2020 calendar year.
In January, CBP and ICE agents assigned to serve as advisors in Guatemala ended up packing hundreds of Honduran migrants into rented, unmarked vans and shipping them back to Honduras, without even an opportunity to seek asylum. An October report by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democratic staff found that DHS lied to the State Department, which was funding the CBP and ICE presence in Guatemala, about the bizarre operational role its agents were playing.
In February, a Guatemalan woman reported that while she was in Border Patrol custody, agents ignored her requests for medical attention. As a result, she had togive birth with her pants on, while standing and clutching the side of a trash can in the Chula Vista, California Border Patrol station. She was sent to a nearby hospital, then returned to the Border Patrol station where she spent a night “without an adequate blanket for the baby.”
Since March, Border Patrol agents and CBP officers summarily expelled more than 150,000 Mexican and Central American migrants back into Mexico, usually in about 90 minutes or less, with no real opportunity to request asylum if they were fleeing lethal threats. This has been done in the name of COVID-19 protections, but we now know—thanks to AP and Wall Street Journal investigators—that the Centers for Disease Control had recommended against closing the border, only to be overruled by Vice President Mike Pence.
That number includes 8,800 children apprehended while unaccompanied by an adult, then swiftly returned to their home countries while unaccompanied, between March and August. (September data are still pending.) Border agencies made zero effort to ensure these children’s safety upon expulsion or even track their whereabouts. Those to be flown back were warehoused in border-city hotels, guarded by an ICE contractor not certified for childcare, while awaiting their expulsion.
In June the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) determined that CBP had broken the law. A year earlier, Congress had appropriated money for the agency to improve its care of children and families in its custody, paying for items like blankets, food, and medicine. Instead, CBP spent much of the humanitarian appropriation on items like computer network upgrades, vaccines for CBP personnel, dog food, and dirt bikes.
In June, elite Border Patrol agents were among DHS personnel sent to Portland, Oregon—against the wishes of the mayor and governor—to confront protesters following the killing of George Floyd. While some protesters were violent, the agents’ crowd control tactics—which included grabbing people off of sidewalks into unmarked vans—did nothing to de-escalate the situation, nor did they incorporate best practices for de-escalation. If anything, their aggressive tactics prolonged the confrontations.
In July in El Paso, a Border Patrol agentran over a 29-year-old Mexican man while pursuing him in his vehicle. Though injured, the migrant was deported within 48 hours. Border Patrol refuses to make public its vehicle pursuit policy.
In July, Maria Cristina Vargas Espinosa, a 38-year-old mother from Guanajuato, Mexico, died after falling from the border wall west of El Paso. She was at least the second person to die of such a fall this year: a pregnant Guatemalan woman and her unborn baby died of a fall in Clint, Texas, in March. Neither Border Patrol nor other local authorities disclosed Ms. Vargas’s death orbothered to investigate it; her relatives in Mexico only learned of her fate from her smuggler. Asked by El Paso Matters how often such incidents happen, a Border Patrol agent said that “a large number of people…get major injuries.” His main concern, though, was that “those hospital bills are ridiculous.”
In July in Arizona, dozens of rifle-bearing Border Patrol agents, accompanied by an armored vehicle and helicopters,raided a desert camp run on private land by No More Deaths, an organization that provides humanitarian aid in an area where thousands of migrants have died in this century of dehydration and exposure. Agents arrested migrants receiving medical attention, seized phones, photos, and records, and “trashed” No More Deaths’ camp.
In July, the libertarian publication Reasonrevealed a 2012 internal affairs report indicating that a CBP instructor had told “a room full of supervisors” that “if Border Patrol agents feel threatened by a migrant, they should ‘beat that tonk like a piñata until candy comes out.’” This was yet another appearance of the word “tonk” or “tonc,” Border Patrol slang for an undocumented migrant. Former agents say that the word originates from the sound a human skull makes when clubbed with an agent’s heavy Maglite flashlight. When an agent uses a weapon, he or she must file a memo about the incident; no paperwork is required for flashlights.
By August, only four Border Patrol agents, of unknown rank, had been fired for their involvement in a graphically offensive Facebook group. The group, “I’m 10-15,” whose members included 9,500 current and former agents, was revealed to exist a full year earlier. Twelve months after launching an investigation, “CBP has provided little new information about” the group “or its efforts to address toxic attitudes within the ranks,” reported ProPublica, the outlet that revealed the group’s existence.
In August Tianna Spears, a Black U.S. diplomat who had been assigned to the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juárez, published a lengthy account in Politico about the blatant racial profiling to which CBP officers subjected her whenever she crossed back into El Paso. “[O]fficers in primary inspection still made sarcastic comments, cruel jokes and belittling jabs implying I was not a U.S. diplomat, not a U.S. citizen and had stolen my own car.”
In September Border Patrol used taxpayer money to produce a video depicting a fictionalized Spanish-speaking migrant whose first action after eluding agents is to kill a man in a dark alley. With evidence pointing to lower crime rates among undocumented migrants than among the general population, “The Gotaway” video reinforces racist stereotypes to which, we hope, most Border Patrol personnel do not actually subscribe.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, local media in El Paso and Arizona have reported about CBP officers and Border Patrol agents going unmasked in their interactions with the public, from checkpoint encounters to the July raid on No More Deaths.
CBP’s rapid border wall construction is doing permanent environmental damage: gouging at mountains, draining a fragile desert oasis to mix cement, and sealing animals’ migratory routes. Members of Indigenous communities have been arrested for carrying out civil disobedience against the construction in California and Arizona. But the building continues, with no meaningful engagement with affected communities.
While ICE is not the focus of this analysis, any discussion of this year would be incomplete without recalling allegations of non-consensual surgeries performed on women at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia; the deportation of a woman alleging sexual abuse at the El Paso detention facility while investigations were ongoing; the storing of children and families in border-town hotel rooms under questionable supervision; a slipshod, hardline response to COVID-19 that has led to a cumulative total of 6,541 cases in detention, deportations of COVID-19-positive individuals to countries with weak public health systems; and a sharp increase this year in the use of pepper spray and other force against the agency’s detainees.
Beyond all of this are the everyday allegations of racial profiling, roughing up (called “tuning up”) of apprehended migrants, abusive language, maintenance of hieleras and other deliberately uncomfortable custody conditions, and a view that people exercising their legal right to seek asylum are, in President Trump’s words, “scammers” gaming the system.
Photo from CNN Español. Caption: “El Tribunal de Instrucción tenía programado este lunes la inspección de archivos militares en busca de posibles evidencias que podrían ayudar a esclarecer la masacre.”
At a moment when U.S. arms transfers are making headlines for the wrong reasons – from Yemen to the Philippines and Latin America – members of Congress find themselves with few options to withhold U.S.-made weapons from governments that suppress democracy, systematically violate human rights
“We need to change the culture of [the Carabineros] to ensure that the right to protest is guaranteed and that they cannot hide evidence or obstruct the course of justice”
La CIDH exhorta a Colombia a investigar estos hechos de manera pronta y diligente, así como juzgar y sancionar a los responsables materiales e intelectuales de los mismos
Los senadores Iván Cepeda y Antonio Sanguino habían pedido información sobre la presencia de militares extranjeros en el país. El ministro no ha respondido
Foreign and domestic economists forecast the move will cause triple digit inflation and bankruptcies while at the same time stimulating domestic economic efficiency and exports over imports
Por segunda ocasión, el juez Jorge Guzmán no pudo verificar la existencia de archivos militares sobre la masacre de El Mozote, luego que la Fuerza Aérea de El Salvador se negó a cumplir el fallo
El Informe Alternativo muestra la creciente desigualdad social, de la tortura, de los abusos contra a grupos de mayor vulnerabilidad como la niñez, juventud, discapacidad, mujeres, poblaciones indígenas, LGBTI, personas migrantes, situación de defensores y defensoras
Las medidas cautelares solicitadas al organismo interamericano buscan “evitar mayores confrontaciones” entre la Guardia Nacional y las personas que han manifestado su oposición a que México disponga del líquido de la presa
Farmers in Mexico ambushed soldiers and seized a dam to stop water payments to the United States, in a sign of growing conflict over increasingly scarce resources
El representante de ONU-DH, Guillermo Fernández-Maldonado, reconoció que la SCJN “ha sido precursora en definir los límites de la jurisdicción militar en México de acuerdo con lo establecido en las normas y estándares internacionales”
Final numbers are set to be released Wednesday at an event with Border Patrol officials in Tucson, but apprehensions through the first 11 months of the fiscal year are less than half the total for fiscal 2019
The reduced rights accorded the U.S.-side of the border are epitomized by way that normal rules and procedures are suspended or inapplicable in this zone
Al frente, Jesús Suárez Chourío, durante años jefe del Estado Mayor de la Comandancia en Jefe de la Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana (FANB), número dos del Ejército
I’m writing on a deadline this morning, providing a statement for lititagors in one of the challenges to a Trump administration border policy. While I’m doing that, WOLA will be publishing a report I’ve written about the border, about which I’ll be getting the word out. In the afternoon I need to prepare a talk that I’ll be giving for a private event about Colombia tomorrow.
On the calendar, I’ll be tuning in to a discussion of Bolivia that WOLA is hosting at 11:00. I’ve got an internal planning meeting mid-day, then a press interview, then I’ll be recording a new edition of WOLA’s podcast. My replies to communications could be delayed, and tomorrow’s schedule looks pretty heavy too.
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