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I’m off today. (How to contact me)
Today is a holiday in the United States (Memorial Day), and since I had to work Saturday—speaking on two panels at the Latin American Studies Association congress—I’m taking off as much of this Monday as I can. In the afternoon I hope to catch up on news, and in the evening write up a weekly Colombia update. But I’ll have my communications apps off.
(I’m running behind—there’s too much going on…)
Hundreds of wildcat miners have attacked police who were trying to halt illegal mining in the Brazilian Amazon before raiding an indigenous village and setting houses on fire
Mr Bolsonaro “is becoming a prisoner of his unpopularity”
Chileans used the ballot box rather than the street to express their rage. Independent candidates (some, confusingly, affiliated to party lists) grabbed 88 of the 155 seats
Luego de la polémica desatada por la negativa del gobierno colombiano a recibir la visita de la Organización de Estados Americanos y de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, la vicepresidenta y canciller les envió cartas extendiendo la invitación
Forty-six people have suffered eye injuries, prompting speculation that police were intentionally seeking to blind protesters
En reunión privada con el Comité del Paro plantearon incluir esto en el preacuerdo
The protesters are demanding the government guarantee the right to social protest while Duque’s administration won’t budge from its demand that road blockades that have created widespread shortages be lifted
La Embajada en Estados Unidos y el gobierno en Bogotá armaron la gira casi sobre la marcha y arrancó un día después de que Ramírez decidiera quedarse en el Gobierno
La Corte Suprema declaró que la violencia policial en protestas es sistemática por conductas que en el paro nacional de 2021 solo se han intensificado
An analysis of visual evidence from recent protests in Colombia shows egregious and indiscriminate use of force by officers toward civilians
En los primeros cuatro meses del 2021, según distintas cifras oficiales analizadas, aumentaron masacres y homicidios en zonas de conflicto a niveles no registrados en esta década
The promises of history and the grinding realities of life after 62 years of Communist rule collide in San Isidro
Her blunt talk has drawn so much anger from one Central American leader and his followers that she sleeps with a 9-millimeter pistol at her side
Esta operación fue liderada por el Ministerio Público de Honduras en una estrategia conjunta con los Ministerios Públicos de Guatemala y El Salvador para combatir estructuras criminales de la Pandilla 18 y Mara Salvatrucha MS-13
Relaciona “la forma cronológica como fuerzas de seguridad del Estado entre los años 1983 a 1985, secuestraron, trasladaron a centros clandestinos de detención, torturaron, violentaron sexualmente y ejecutaron a más de 183 personas”
Experts say drug cartels in Mexico often attack innocent candidates to force them out of races and leave the way clear for cartel favorites
Nuestra inquietud e incertidumbre está referida en especial, a la amenaza de uno de los partidos que participa en esta contienda, el cual ha anunciado a través de su candidato a la Presidencia de la República, la no aceptación de una derrota
Vraem no puede ser abordado desde una perspectiva ideológica, pues ninguno de los remanentes de Sendero Luminoso en esa zona desean la lucha armada para tomar el poder, como en los 80
It would shift the decision-making power for whether certain immigrants encountered at the border are granted asylum from an immigration judge to an asylum officer
Under the new program, immigration judges in 10 cities are expected in general to issue decisions within 300 days of a family’s first master calendar court hearing
Defensores de derechos humanos consideran que con los traslados de presos políticos «se le estaría entregando la custodia a las pandillas criminales que dirigen las cárceles en nuestro país»
With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.
In a column at the Los Angeles Times, three medical providers from the Refugee Health Alliance discussed what they’ve seen at the tent encampment that has sprung up around the Chaparral port of entry, on the Mexican side of the main pedestrian border crossing between Tijuana and San Diego. There, about 2,000 asylum seekers from several countries are waiting for a chance to present to U.S. officials and ask for protection in the United States.
Some are recent arrivals; many are people, including families, whom U.S. border authorities apprehended, then rapidly expelled without a chance to ask for protection. Since March 2020, the expulsions have taken place under a pandemic public health order, known as “Title 42,” that the Trump administration began and the Biden administration has continued.
“We’ve seen how this expulsion policy has caused a humanitarian emergency in northern Mexico,” write Psyche Calderon, Hannah Janeway, and Ronica Mukerjee. “We have seen increasing dehydration, malnutrition and infectious diseases associated with overcrowding. At an encampment in Tijuana that shelters some 2,000 asylum seekers, there are no formal sanitation facilities; gastrointestinal illnesses are causing severe illness in newborns and young children.”
The op-ed highlights other recent striking statistics from the border, including research that found “More than 80% of LGBTQ refugees in Baja California [the state of which Tijuana is the capital] reported surviving an assault in Mexico from mid-February to March.”
In another recent report, Julia Neusner of Human Rights First interviewed more than 110 asylum seekers waiting in Tijuana, both at the encampment and elsewhere in the city. She found that many are threatened: “The U.S. government is delivering those expelled under Title 42 straight into the hands of criminal organizations, who extort their family members in the United States for ransom. Nearly a quarter of the fifty families I interviewed who had been expelled under Title 42 had been kidnapped in Mexico.” The report notes that Human Rights First has documented “more than 492 public reports of assaults, rapes, kidnappings, and other violent attacks against asylum seekers impacted by Title 42 since the Biden administration took office.”
As noted in recent weekly updates, a similar encampment of asylum seeking migrants, mostly made up of people expelled under Title 42, has also sprung up on the eastern end of the border, in Reynosa, Tamaulipas.
(Encampments at the border also came up during a May 26 congressional hearing, when the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia), asked Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about “tent cities that have been set up on the northern border of Mexico, I’m assuming, I think those for set up for the adults that are waiting for this Title 42 authority to go.” (This is incorrect, the ‘tent cities’ include many families.) In his response, Mayorkas made no mention of the encampments in Tijuana and Reynosa. He centered his answer on an earlier encampment, in the city of Matamoros, where those subject to the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy had been living until the Biden administration terminated the policy earlier this year.)
As a May 24 New York Times analysis indicates, the humanitarian effect of expulsions, ongoing litigation to stop them, and expressions like the UNHCR’s call to end Title 42 discussed in last week’s update, are putting great pressure on the Biden administration to end the policy.
Times reporter Zolan Kanno-Youngs notes that Vice President Kamala Harris, who as a senator signed a letter opposing Title 42, “has changed her view on the policy.” Kanno-Youngs tweeted on May 26, “In a private call yesterday for advocates, a White House official, Alida Garcia, was asked about the rule. She called it ‘a tool for the pandemic.’ Did not give timeline.”
Administration officials insist that they are working hard to build capacity to receive and process asylum seekers at the border. “Building asylum back better,” Mayorkas put it during the May 26 hearing. Part of that is the construction of a second Customs and Border Protection (CBP) “Central Processing Center” in El Paso, supplementing one built in early 2020, that may be large enough “to accommodate 965 detainees and a staff of 200 for the processing and temporary holding of migrants who have crossed into the U.S.,” the El Paso Times reported. Plans for the new processing center actually began under the Trump administration, using funds Congress assigned in a mid-2019 emergency supplemental appropriation.
Part of the gradual opening of asylum capacity and gradual closure of Title 42 is the deal between ACLU lawsuit plaintiffs and DHS, reported in last week’s update, to allow 250 families or individuals to enter the United States each day to begin their asylum claims. Now, at the Chaparral port of entry in Tijuana, KPBS reports, “Every morning and afternoon, Customs and Border Protection agents call out names.” It adds,
Deciding who ends up on the list that gets sent to the U.S. government is up to these service providers on the ground in Tijuana. Groups including Al Otro Lado and Casa del Migrante have been working with migrants in the camp and nearby shelters to help identify some of those 250 individuals. It’s based not on their claims of asylum from their home countries, but how much danger they face in Mexico.
“However,” the above-cited medical providers say in their May 27 LA Times op-ed, “this is nowhere near sufficient to address the widespread human rights violations and humanitarian crisis we see every day in Tijuana.”
In a whistleblower complaint, two subject-matter experts who do work for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) denounced the harms of family detention and found that Title 42 is causing the “de facto separation of children from their families, just on the Mexican side of the border.” The complaint is managed by the Government Accountability Project and was shared by the New York Times.
“There is even less of a public health justification now, when, more than a year later, arriving asylum seekers could be easily screened and tested, and currently those over 16 vaccinated, in a way that protects the public health,” the medical experts wrote.
The Biden administration is to submit its detailed DHS 2022 budget request (along with the rest of the federal budget) on May 28. As of this writing on the morning of the 28th, it has not appeared yet. As noted above, DHS Secretary Mayorkas testified before Senate appropriators about the funding request on May 26.
On April 9, the White House had submitted an overview document, called the “skinny budget,” that provided a few top-line numbers:
Sen. Capito criticized the budget request’s lack of an increase for DHS over 2021 levels: “Despite every other agency receiving substantial increases in funding, the Department of Homeland Security stands alone as the only department held virtually flat from last year.” However, the $52 billion in 2021 and 2022 is $10 billion more than 2017, $5 billion more than 2018, $3 billion more than 2019, and nearly $2 billion more than 2020.
Mayorkas told The Washington Post that DHS does not plan any 2022 cuts to staffing or detention capacity at ICE. He promised the subcommittee that the Biden administration would notify the appropriators if dealing with the 2021 increase in migration makes it necessary to reprogram or transfer funds from other DHS accounts. “I would anticipate that we will indeed seek a reprogramming, but that’s something that we are assessing right now.”
The stop to border wall funding and the overall leveling-off of the budget could make the Homeland Security bill’s passage contentious in the Senate Appropriations Committee. Though it is chaired by Democrats in the 50-50 Senate, the Committee has 15 Democrats and 15 Republicans, leaving little room for maneuver to full committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Homeland Security Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut).
During three of the past four weeks, the daily number of non-Mexican migrant children arriving unaccompanied at the U.S.-Mexico border has stayed within a daily average of 360 to 390 per day. (During the other week, the number was even lower.) This rate of arrivals points to about 11,500 non-Mexican unaccompanied children (plus perhaps 2,000 Mexican children who are quickly deported) during the month of May—a significant drop from 16,500 non-Mexican kids in March and 14,700 in April.
The population of children in Border Patrol’s inadequate holding facilities, awaiting handoffs to the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s (ORR) network of short-term shelters, has leveled off in the 600s. Handoffs from Border Patrol to ORR are mostly happening within 24 hours—not more than a week, as was happening in late March and early April.
The number of children in ORR custody, including 13 large and increasingly controversial temporary emergency shelters, remains over 18,000, though this population is at its lowest level in about six weeks. During three of the past four weeks, ORR has discharged an average of more than 500 kids per day to relatives or sponsors in the United States, with whom they will live while their protection claims are adjudicated. With about 360-390 children being newly apprehended and over 500 discharged each day, the population of unaccompanied kids in U.S. government custody is gradually but steadily decreasing.
Press reports are uncovering troubling details about life in ORR’s emergency shelters. While the agency prohibits nearly all access to the facilities and requires employees to sign non-disclosure agreements, reporters have talked to some discharged children and to some unidentified employees about what’s going on inside.
A 16-year-old who spent several days at Border Patrol’s tent-based processing facility in Donna, Texas told the BBC “there were 80 girls in her cubicle and that she and most of the children were wet under their blankets, due to dripping pipes. ‘We all woke up wet,’ she said. ‘We slept on our sides, all hugged, so we stayed warm.’” Other children at Donna told of being given expired, rotten, or uncooked food. Some went many days at a time without being able to shower, and contracted lice. A 10-year-old girl told BBC “the guards threatened the children if they did not keep their cramped quarters clean. ‘Sometimes they would tell us that if we were doing a lot of mess, they were going to punish us by leaving us there more days.’”
At the Dallas convention center where ORR is keeping hundreds of kids who need to be placed with relatives or sponsors, “The children always complain about not having enough, not eating enough,” a staff member told BBC, adding that the site is cold, the boys each have one thin blanket, they are forced to spend most of their time by their cots in the main convention hall, and are given only 30 minutes of indoor recreation twice per week.
4,500 children are currently at an emergency shelter site at Fort Bliss, a large Army base outside El Paso, Texas, a site that can hold up to 10,000. There, a source told BBC, “hundreds of children are in Covid isolation, and there are designated tents at the site now for scabies and lice, of which there are also outbreaks. Sources say the living conditions are unsanitary, and that there has been at least one report of sexual abuse in the girls’ tent.”
A 16-year-old Guatemalan boy who spent 25 days at Fort Bliss told CBS, “We were trapped. We would only go to the bathroom and return to the cots.” Even though his mother was in the United States and willing to sponsor him, he did not get to talk to a case manager for three weeks.
Of the 4,500 unaccompanied kids at Fort Bliss as of May 14, government data seen by CBS andVice show, nearly 600 had been there for at least 40 days. 1,675 had been there for at least 30 days.
Vice reports that the contractor hired to set up and administer the Fort Bliss site, Alabama-based Rapid Deployment Inc., has received $614.3 million for its services; the contracts expire May 30 but could be extended through October. Rapid Deployment has built emergency shelters for natural disaster victims, but is not experienced in childcare.
The Health and Human Services Department (HHS), which oversees ORR, has abandoned plans to use the Fort Bliss facility to shelter “tender age” children (under 12 years old), CBS reports. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), who represents El Paso, toured the Fort Bliss site on May 21 and told Vice that she “left convinced that ‘mega sites’ are a bad idea.’” She continued, “We need to break down these big sites. I find them depressing and disheartening. The bigger the bureaucracy, the bigger the facility, the bigger the problem. I’ve made that very clear.”
Medical experts fear that recent outbreaks in some ICE detention facilities not only endanger the health of detainees and staff, but could spread to surrounding communities
Arturo Carlos Murillo Prijic, 57, Sergio Rodrigo Mendez Mendizabal, 51, Luis Berkman, 58, Bryan Berkman, 36, and Philip Lichtenfeld, 48, engaged in the bribery scheme between approximately November 2019 and April 2020
Mr. Bolsonaro effectively planned for at least 1.4 million deaths in Brazil. From his perspective, the 450,000 Brazilians already killed by Covid-19 must look like a job not even half-done
The documentary short “Desde Que Llegaste, Mi Corazón Dejó de Pertenecerme” follows a group of women from Central America on an emotional journey
Tres directivos de la cooperativa Coopripaz fueron capturados el lunes en operativos simultáneos señalados de pertenecer a la disidencia de la Segunda Marquetalia y de obedecer órdenes de Iván Márquez en medio de las manifestaciones
Protester demands have expanded to include a basic income, opportunities for young people and an end to police violence, including calls to scrap the riot police squad ESMAD
Since early 2021, people in this majority-Black coastal city have been rising up peacefully but insistently against rampant drug trafficking, political violence and cartel infiltration
Este trabajo intenta esclarecer uno de los episodios que generó controversias
La vicepresidenta Marta Lucía Ramírez aseguró este miércoles que la visita programada de la Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos (CIDH) para el 29 de junio al país se puede anticipar
The fire destroyed nearly the entire courthouse of that city located approximately 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Cali
Around the world, ultranationalism festers, the rejection of classical liberalism surges, and reactionary political groups rise — and with every passing day, the Salvadoran leader is creating a model for successors to follow
Alberto Reyes Vaca, excomandante de las Fuerzas Especiales en Temamantla, Estado de México, ordenó la remodelación de una de las instalaciones de la Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional (Sedena) en dicho cuartel y durante su administración organizó varias “narcofiestas”
The president’s scorn for rules is one reason the elections on June 6th matter
Alma Barragan was shot dead on Tuesday, local media reported, while campaigning for the mayorship of the city of Moroleon in the violence-plagued state of Guanajuato
El presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador y el titular del INE, Lorenzo Córdova, coincidieron en el llamado a los mexicanos a salir a votar en la jornada del 6 de junio sin temor al crimen organizado
El virtual congresista de Perú Libre afirmó que los cocaleros sufren “los despropósitos de una equivocada lucha antisubversiva”
Uno de los primeros adeptos que reclutó Gonzalo fue un profesor escolar ayacuchano muy humilde llamado Martín Quispe Mendoza
Mayorkas did not give lawmakers a timetable to lift the pandemic order and return to standard immigration processing, but said he was planning to meet with senior officials at U.S. immigration agencies later Wednesday
In 2018, faced with intense criticism, the El Paso Border Patrol sector scrapped a “crowd control exercise” that was planned next to the Chihuahuita neighborhood on Nov. 6 — Election Day
A few families who had been living here are getting into the United States, escaping the cramped and dangerous spaces of the haphazard camp
On Monday, two physicians who work as consultants for the Department of Homeland Security sent a letter to members of Congress saying the rule has had the “perverse impact” of encouraging parents to send their children to cross the border alone
A former senior Bolivian official has been arrested for allegedly seeking at least $582,000 in kickbacks from a group of Florida-based businessmen accused of selling tear gas at inflated prices to the conservative government of former interim President Jeanine Áñez
The strain comes at a time when there is no near-term hope of mass vaccination to safeguard the labor force
La Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa (Flip) pidió a la Procuraduría y a la Defensoría vigilar la reciente estrategia de comunicaciones del Ministerio de Defensa, #ColombiaEsMiVerdad
Hay al menos tres cuentas: la que llevan las autoridades —la Fiscalía y la Defensoría, que delegó la vocería al ente acusador—, la de las ONG colombianas Temblores e Indepaz, y la internacional que lleva Human Rights Watch
Despite peace officially coming to Colombia in 2016, La Playita has seen 44 murders so far this year alone as locals fall victim to violent displays of dominance by rival drug gangs
En ese espacio han perdido la vida, en forma violenta, un policía y dos jóvenes entre miércoles y domingo
La jornada terminó con un joven estudiante muerto, 18 establecimientos comerciales y públicos vandalizados, saqueos y, como se vio en redes sociales, el palacio de justicia en llamas
Este delito, alertaron en el evento, tiene un 97 por ciento de impunidad en el país
Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO, Mary Kay Henry of the SEIU, and James P. Hoffa of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters called on the American government to “to use all existing policy mechanisms available” to “bring Colombia into compliance with its international labour and human rights obligations”
Un juez federal admitió a trámite un amparo interpuesto por la familia LeBarón, con el cual buscan que se reabra la investigación contra el ex secretario de la Defensa Nacional
De acuerdo con analistas, dudan que pueda haber un segundo ataque del Sendero Luminoso en lo que resta de la campaña presidencial, pero advierten que es un mensaje al próximo mandatario de que mantendrán la lucha comunista-maoísta
They represent the Department of Homeland Security’s latest approach to temporarily detaining and processing migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border without permission
The Roma are Europe’s largest ethnic minority and have a long history of social exclusion and discrimination
As President Joe Biden undoes Trump immigration policies that he considers inhumane, he faces a major question: How far should he go to right his predecessor’s perceived wrongs?
I’m on a deadline and difficult to reach today. (How to contact me)
I’m way behind on a couple of presentations that I have to give later this week, in part because there have been many, many calls and interviews about the situation in Colombia. Unfortunately today I need to put things in “do not disturb” mode for several hours, when not in already-scheduled meetings (internal meetings, interviews, a sit-down with visiting Colombians). I will be hard to reach.
Countries in the region were beholden to a global medical supply chain during the pandemic that saw the United States effectively ban the export of certain necessary raw materials and Russia so far deliver fewer of its Sputnik V doses than what it promised to various Latin American governments
Former Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello, an active-duty general who appeared at a rally for far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, will likely be disciplined by the army for breaking rules against political involvement
La invitó a realizar la visita de trabajo a Colombia luego de la audiencia pública de oficio sobre la situación de derechos humanos en Colombia, que se llevará a cabo el próximo 29 de junio durante el 180 Período de Sesiones de la CIDH
Especialistas consultados por El Espectador coinciden en que es una situación que no favorece al país
The leader of the General Work Confederation (CGT) union told media earlier on Monday pre-agreements were 90% complete
Molano, quien se posesionó hace poco más de tres meses, fue llamado a responder por los casos de abusos cometidos por la Fuerza Pública durante el paro
The seven-hour session, which ended without a vote on the dismissal of Diego Molano, was convened by 18 legislators due to “human rights violations” allegedly committed by security forces
Los ocho oficiales cumplen un mes como rehenes en medio del conflicto entre el Ejército venezolano y grupos irregulares en la frontera con Colombia
Las organizaciones exigieron la creación de comisiones de la verdad, indagar a las cadenas de mando y reformas que obliguen a las dependencias a participar en las investigaciones
In recent weeks Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has stepped up references to American interventionism, and demanded that Joe Biden’s administration revoke funding for two civil society organizations he dislikes
La comunidad internacional ha venido registrando, desde abril de 2018, un clima de hostilidad hacia el ejercicio de la libertad de expresio?n en el pai?s
The killings took place in a community in Vizcatan de Ene, which is in an area of the Peruvian Amazon that authorities believe is being used as a hideout by remnants of the Shining Path movement
Leaflets threaten voters for rightwing candidate Keiko Fujimori
En esta nota recordamos algunos de ellos. La lista de atentados es mucho más extensa
The Juan Guaidó Venezuelans heard this month in a new video was more subdued as he now proposed negotiating with the Maduro regime
If President Joe Biden hopes to avoid replicating these failures, he must acknowledge that U.S. policy itself is one of those ?“root causes” of migration?
Es una decisión que puede impulsar la reparación en las regiones más golpeadas por la guerra, pero está llena de desafíos
El nuncio apostólico, Luis Mariano Montemayor, destaca avances en los diálogos con esa guerrilla, entre ellos su disposición a discutir los temas que el Gobierno pone como precondición
Según la vicepresidenta, primero se debe dejar trabajar a las instituciones colombianas para que los entes internacionales puedan venir al país a evaluar la situación tras varias semanas de protestas
Si es cierto lo que dice, significaría que dos días antes de que Duque lo pusiera a cargo de la compleja negociación con el Comité del Paro, el Presidente ya sabía que el funcionario no tenía intenciones de trabajar más que un par de semanas más
Gen. Vargas said government intelligence indicates that drug traffickers and re-armed members of guerrilla groups have carried out some of the violence. He said these groups are paying demonstrators
El reporte de la Defensoría del Pueblo y la Fiscalía dan cuenta que 129 personas permanecen desaparecidas, al menos 17 muertes están vinculadas con las movilizaciones y 954 personas han sido capturadas en flagrancia
El silencio se explica en parte porque el gobierno estadounidense tiene otras prioridades y porque a los políticos y diplomáticos no les gusta hablar en público sobre el comportamiento de sus aliados
Charla con Adam Isacson, director del Programa de Veeduría de Defensa de la Oficina de Washington para Asuntos Latinoamericanos, WOLA
Fundaredes dice que este nuevo secuestro se habría dado el pasado 19 de mayo
Los ocho militares venezolanos secuestrados por las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) enviaron un video solicitando al diputado Diosdado Cabello que agilice su liberación
The 65-year-old conservative former banker defeated left-wing rival Andrés Arauz in a closely fought run-off election on 11 April
There is no systematic relation between homicidal violence and the presence of poppies in territories in Mexico
El director de la Policía Estatal Preventiva (PEP), Joel Ernesto Soto, fue asesinado este lunes mientras circulaba en su vehículo por la carretera Los Mochis-Culiacán
López Obrador has claimed Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity is aligned with the opposition, but it says it merely monitors government spending and programs for abuses and has criticized previous governments and other parties
Mr. Castillo’s opponents have accused him of being a Shining Path sympathizer who would plunge the country back into the chaos of the insurgency
Entre las víctimas se encontraron dos menores de edad. También se encontró un panfleto donde da cuenta de que se trataría de una “limpieza” efectuada contra “elementos de mal vivir, parásitos y corruptos”
Vizcatán del Ene es una de las localidades del Vraem declaradas en emergencia, pues registra tránsito constante de terroristas al servicio del narcotráfico
This is the second time this week that SPFD responded to a call of a person falling from the fence
The mega-contract went to Alabama-based Rapid Deployment Inc., led by CEO Bruce Wagner, whose involvement in federal disaster response dates back to Hurricane Katrina in 2005
Democratic Congresswoman Veronica Escobar said she spoke to a young boy housed at Fort Bliss who told her he was depressed: “it just broke my heart”
While I was in Dilley, most women spoke to officers, typically men, often over the phone and with an interpreter, battling additional barriers of custom, language, and gender
Human Rights First has tracked more than 492 public reports of assaults, rapes, kidnappings, and other violent attacks against asylum seekers impacted by Title 42 since the Biden administration took office
From the time the Government began increasing criminal prosecutions in July 2017, ICE removed at least 348 parents separated from their children without documenting that those parents wanted to leave their children in the United States
Many thanks to Camila Asano, the program director at the São Paulo-based think tank Conectas, for joining WOLA’s podcast. Her country is going through a historically difficult—tragic—moment, and she explains why civil society there is a last bulwark against authoritarianism. We must accompany and protect many very brave people during this dark moment.
Thanks as well to WOLA Program Assistant Moses Ngong, who is playing a bigger role in helping me put these podcasts out. Here’s the text of the podcast landing page at wola.org.
Brazil is the second largest country in the hemisphere, but its many complex issues rarely make news in the U.S. In this episode of the WOLA podcast, Camila Asano, Director of Programs at the Brazilian human rights NGO Conectas, joins Adam Isacson and Moses Ngong to discuss recent and ongoing attacks on human rights and democracy in Brazil.
The conversation covers a handful of key issues facing the country today, including:
Camila’s insights provide valuable context for several issues facing the country’s relatively young democracy and diverse civil society. Please enjoy!
Readings:
Conectas’ publication on Rights in the Pandemic can be found here (read about it in English here).
Their publication on police violence at custody hearings can be found in English here.
Listen to WOLA’s Latin America Today podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The main feed is here.
I just sent off another e-mail update to those who’ve subscribed. It’s got links to English translations of two analyses published in Colombian media, robust weekly updates about Colombia and the U.S.-Mexico border, some upcoming event listings, and some funny tweets.
Here is an English translation of a piece that ran in Colombia’s Razón Pública on Monday.
How is the National Strike seen from Washington?
Written by Adam Isacson May 24, 2021
Although many U.S. congressmen have rejected police violence in Colombia, the Biden administration continues to remain silent. Why?
Biden’s silence
Four weeks of the national strike have passed and the administration of Joe Biden has not said much about the current situation in Colombia.
The silence is partly explained by the fact that the U.S. government has other priorities and that politicians and diplomats do not like to speak publicly about the behavior of their allies when they disagree with them. The unfortunate consequence is that silence is misinterpreted as indifference or as an act of support for the security forces in Colombia.
But what is happening in Colombia has not gone unnoticed in Washington. A large number of progressive members of Congress, moved by videos of police brutality, has expressed outrage at the human rights violations, mostly committed by government forces. A small number of conservative voices have repeated some of the Duque government’s arguments: that the protests are the work of organized agitators.
More moderate legislators have either said nothing or taken a Solomonic position: “both sides are to blame.” For now, it appears that the Biden administration’s response follows the line of the moderates, who remain silent.
The progressives
Some of the U.S. voices calling on the Duque administration to curb police violence are already well known in Colombia.
Massachusetts Democratic Representative Jim McGovern was the first to speak out on the issue. McGovern has visited Colombia repeatedly over the past twenty years and now heads the powerful House Rules Committee.
On May 3, he tweeted, “I am deeply disturbed by the brutal Colombian National Police (PNC) response to peaceful protests over the weekend. U.S. aid to the PNC needs strong human rights protections and conditions. We should apply Leahy Law. No U.S. aid to Colombian ESMAD riot units that engage in gross human rights violations.”
The “Leahy Law” prohibits military assistance (though not the sale of military equipment) to foreign security forces with a pattern of serious human rights violations, without effective state action to bring the perpetrators to justice. Although ESMAD does not receive U.S. assistance, the tear gas they use is made in the United States. But the Colombian state buys these and other equipment with its own funds.
On May 11, Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, who gives the law its name, tweeted, “It is shocking to see the violent police response by the Colombian govt of overwhelmingly peaceful protesters. Legitimate grievances, while no excuse for violence or vandalism, should be a cause for dialogue, not excessive force. If the Colombian govt has solid evidence that protests are being orchestrated by terrorists, as alleged, produce the evidence and arrest the perpetrators. If not then law abiding Colombians will understandably lose patience with their leaders.” Senator Leahy, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is one of the most powerful members of the chamber, and a veteran Colombia watcher.
Another high-level Democrat who strongly criticized the Colombian government was New York Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks, who has championed the rights of Colombian Afro-descendants and now chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. On May 4, Meeks tweeted, “I’m extremely concerned by the brutal PNC and ESMAD response to protests in Colombia. I’m particularly alarmed by developments in Cali and call on President Ivan Duque to deescalate the violence and make clear that excessive use of force is inexcusable.”
Other progressives, including Senator Edward J. Markey, Texas Democratic Representative Joaquín Castro and New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also expressed their concern on social media and in press releases.
On May 14, 55 Democratic members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, where they asked the State Department to:
The conservatives
While progressives have been notably active, U.S. right-wing figures have been rather quiet.
On May 6, Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio tweeted, “Behind much of the violence occurring in Colombia this week is an orchestrated effort to destabilize a democratically elected government by left wing narco guerrilla movements & their international marxist allies.”
If this sounds vaguely like the rhetoric of “molecular revolution dissipated” it is because many of Senator Rubio’s Colombian constituents are aligned with Uribismo. In South Florida, the Colombian protests are a frequent topic of conversation on Spanish-language radio, where commentators view the demonstrations as the result of a “hybrid warfare” strategy by the left.
Rubio’s tweet is the only statement on the strike that I have seen from a Republican member of the U.S. Congress. But that doesn’t mean the right is staying silent: a conservative Washington think tank called the Center for a Secure Free Society released a report on May 17 entitled “Asymmetric Assault on Colombia,” in which it argued that “the Colombian people, especially the peaceful protestors, are not the culprits in the crisis—they are the victims.”
They claim that the protesters, who lack agency, have been misled by international agitators. The report continues: “As some of the most vulnerable in society, the poor and middle class in Colombia are targeted as tools of asymmetric warfare by foreign and domestic adversaries to the Colombian state”.
The moderates and the Biden administration
As vocal as progressives are, and will continue to be, they alone will not get the Biden administration to act decisively against police violence in Colombia.
Much depends on what moderates in the Democratic Party, such as Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J., or Western Hemisphere Subcommittee Chairman Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, do or say. Both have so far remained silent.
These and other lawmakers, who are heard by Biden, do not dismiss the progressives’ arguments, although they may not share some recommendations, such as freezing police aid. And they are more likely to be in touch with the Colombian embassy and business community.
For its part, the Biden administration has expressed only mild concern. On May 4, Juan Gonzalez, White House National Security Council Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs, tweeted, “The right to peaceful protest is a fundamental freedom. Needless destruction is not. Violence that endangers lives is not. And proper observance of use of force standards is NOT negotiable.” Two days later Gonzalez told The Hill: “Police, whether in the United States or Colombia, need to engage by certain rules and respect fundamental freedoms, and that’s not a critique.”
The State Department issued a statement on May 4 with a message to both sides: “All over the world, citizens in democratic countries have the unquestionable right to protest peacefully. Violence and vandalism is an abuse of that right. At the same time, we urge the utmost restraint by public forces to prevent additional loss of life. We recognize the Government of Colombia’s commitment to investigate reports of police excesses and address any violations of human rights.”
A long-standing relationship
The Biden administration wants to be cautious for a primarily geopolitical reason: it does not want to clash with one of its few strong allies in the region, one that shares borders with Venezuela, while Chinese and Russian influence appears to be growing. At the same time, the Biden administration doesn’t ignore the long and deep relationship the United States has maintained with the Colombian police, forged since before the fight against the Medellin and Cali cartels.
I estimate that U.S. cooperation with the Colombian Police will amount to about $150 to $160 million in 2021 (out of a total police and military aid package of about $250 million, which in turn is part of a $520 million aid package). The purposes of this cooperation include:
The relationship between the U.S. government and the Colombian police runs deep: you can see it in the large number of olive green uniforms circulating in the corridors and on the sidewalks if you visit the U.S. embassy in Bogota.
So it is not hard to understand why Biden administration officials are reluctant to talk about freezing aid or sales to the police, and why their public statements have been far softer than those of the UN, the European Union and the OAS mission.
Here’s an English translation of my interview with journalist Cecilia Orozco, which ran in Sunday’s edition of Colombia’s El Espectador.
“People are no longer afraid to express what they feel”
Politics 22 May 2021 – 10:00 p. m.
By: Cecilia Orozco Tascón
A conversation with Adam Isacson, director of the Defense Oversight Program at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), an influential think tank in the U.S. capital. Isacson discusses the law and order situation in Colombia, its impact on the Biden administration, the international impact of allegations of police abuse, and the possibility of “authoritarian populism” winning the 2022 elections.
You have been an analyst of the political situation in Colombia for more than 20 years from the research centers where you have worked. To what do you attribute the social explosion of April and May 2021, outside the moment created by the pandemic and by a tax reform bill that was – to say the least – inopportune?
This could be the same social explosion that began in November 2019. If the year-end holidays and then the pandemic had not interrupted it, we would probably be talking about 18 months of continuous social unrest. The economic despair did not disappear; the anger at the government’s lack of empathy did not disappear; the pain for the lack of implementation of the Peace Agreement and the massacre of social leaders in remote territories did not disappear. On the contrary, all of the above were aggravated during the pandemic.
The country has not been, like other Latin American countries, a country of massive and sustained protests for days and weeks. Nor has it usually overthrown presidents. But this time, peaceful demonstrations and violent acts after them have been going on for almost a month continuously. What changed from its past, so that people decided to go out constantly despite the risk of COVID contagion and the danger of being injured or killed in the riots?
The big change came with the 2016 Peace Accord, because it reduced people’s fear of exercising their freedom of expression. The demobilization of the FARC removed the stigma attached to public protest. Prior to 2016, Colombia had a very large, violent, nationwide guerrilla group that was perceived as an existential threat. It was easy to label anyone who went out to protest as a “guerrilla” in order to delegitimize them, and many people did not dare to demonstrate because of that association. After the accord, the stigma disappeared or is much weaker. The Duque government still tries to present some protesters as linked to the ELN or FARC dissidents. However, these are regional groups that do not represent a great danger to the cities and it is not so convincing. In short, there is more political space for people to take to the streets and they are no longer afraid to express what they feel.
So, could it be said that although citizens knew they could demand their rights, they repressed themselves?
Yes. There was fear of expressing themselves publicly because of the stigmatization of being labeled as “guerrillas” and also because of the social contempt with which the demonstrators were viewed.
People from the governing party and those in uniform maintain that there is a systematic process: first, the massive, peaceful, daytime marches. Then, the nighttime ones that turn into riots produced by individuals who destroy public and private property. Do you think there is a “terrorist” plan of forces opposed to the Duque administration?
Something similar was seen in the United States during the protests that erupted after the assassination of George Floyd. In the daytime, they were peaceful, massive, disciplined, and inspiring. At night, especially in the first two weeks, a small number of people would break windows, set fire to property and clash with the police. On some occasions, these were young people who had become politically radicalized and were filled with hatred for the police, whose aggressive response then inflamed them even further. In others, they were criminals seeking economic gain, almost always through looting. In both cases, the fringe of late-night agitators gave the Trump administration the pretext to use rhetoric delegitimizing Black Lives Matter protesters and their demands. Trump focused his attacks against the demonstrations on something called “antifa” – short for “anti-fascist” – which is more a political posture than an actual group. There has no coordination of violence in the United States. A similar position now appears in Colombia: there is very little evidence of a national movement of violence, but the government tries to blame that activity on armed groups and even international agitators.
Regarding your mention of the “antifa” (supposed leftist extremists who would go, city by city, exporting vandals and vandalism), is the Trump strategy and that of the Colombian government when it blames the “castrochavistas” for vandalism and looting, is it the same and does it intend the same effects?
The term “castrochavista” is the closest thing there is to “antifa”: it means almost the same thing and is the same pretext to justify a violent official response and to disqualify the demonstrators.
But what would the government get out of lying? In any case, gaining time while the social order deteriorates does not seem to be beneficial for the administration nor for its party in the medium or long term when it is discovered that it was only trying to hide its inability to solve a problem?
It is a distraction that serves to avoid facing conversations with protesters, for example, about inequality, just as Trump did not want to talk about racism. It’s a way to put off decisions you don’t want to make by inventing phantoms that distort reality.
The electoral period will soon begin in the country. A scenario of street vandalism, looting and public disorder would be favorable to those who have traditionally fed on voters’ fear. Would this strategy of the ruling party, successful in the past, work in today’s Colombia?
The Democratic Center will use the scenes of violent disorder in the streets to mobilize its electoral base, that is, the roughly one third of Colombians who are hardcore Uribistas. The governing party needs that third of the country to vote massively, but what about the more moderate voters, who seem to share many of the protesters’ demands? They are unhappy with the violence of the protests, but they are also shocked by videos of police brutality. As long as the non-Uribista candidates do not propose anything that scares moderates – just as the slogan “defund the police” scared some moderates in the United States – the appeal of the Democratic Center may be limited to its most rabid base.
Taking into account the situation of permanent social unrest in the country, which does not seem likely to subside immediately, and according to your office’s analysis, do you see the possibility that democracy could be interrupted in Colombia?
It seems very unlikely to me that there will be a rupture of the constitutional order in Colombia. For that to happen, it would require a broad consensus on an opposition candidate or party, or the security forces declaring their lack of confidence in the president. But the picture is different: the opposition is divided, all institutions continue to support the current democratic rules, very few people are seriously calling for Duque’s resignation and most political actors are focused on the impending election campaign.
And what would be the attitude of the United States if there were a total rupture of democracy, for example, declaring and extending the figure of internal commotion [state of siege] or suspending next year’s elections?
In the case of a declaration of internal commotion, as it is a constitutional mechanism, perhaps the U.S. government would keep silent. But if an unconstitutional maneuver is made, such as postponing the elections or extending the current presidential term, I think the Biden administration would speak out because, at that point, the credibility of the United States would be at stake: it cannot criticize Venezuela, Nicaragua and El Salvador for what is happening in each of those countries, and remain silent if its best friend in the region does the same.
The Duque government and his party have been conducting a prolonged fear campaign against the supposed possibility of Colombia becoming “another Venezuela”. In the analysis of Washington officials, is there also this fear of the popularity and high vote of political figures who are opposed to Duque and Uribe and would oppose a leftist triumph?
My perception is that Joe Biden sees himself as one of the few “post-populist” presidents in the world, who managed to remove an authoritarian from power by winning an election. His administration has distanced itself from or opposed populists on the left (Maduro), center (Bukele), and right (Bolsonaro). It could be expected to show the same discomfort with a candidate in Colombia, right or left, Uribista or socialist, who seeks to weaken institutions or collapse democratic checks and balances. At the same time, I do not believe that the Biden administration would oppose a leftist candidate who respects institutions and works within the framework of democratic rules.
U.S. Congressional leaders have called for suspending or not renewing aid to the Colombian police force because of evidence and reports of abuses of power in riot control, and because of protesters killed and injured by ESMAD intervention. How likely is it that the Biden administration will suspend its aid?
We have confirmed that the ESMAD does not receive aid, although it buys equipment manufactured in the United States. As for the institution, unless the human rights situation continues to worsen, it is unlikely that there will be a total suspension of aid to the National Police because the relationship with the United States is very close. It extends from eradication to drug interdiction, to DEA operations, to the establishment of Carabineros units, to the training of forces from other countries. However, there may be some important changes. Since Police General (r) Rosso Jose Serrano fired thousands of officers [in the 1990s], the institution was believed to be less corrupt, more respectful of human rights and more professional. Videos and accounts of abuses in the current protests and the aggressive words of the directors of the Colombian Police and Defense Ministry have alerted U.S. policymakers to the fact that the institution is now badly troubled. The United States is wrestling with its own need to implement police reform, and policy actors in Washington will be examining the situation in Colombia from that perspective.
From several think tanks there are proposals for dialogue to find a solution to the national crisis. Among these proposals, there are two directed to the United States: a. To demand an immediate reform of the Police. b. That while the ESMAD’s protocols are being reviewed, the sale to Colombia of “crowd control” material (dissuasion weapons, gases, tanks) be suspended. Could these requests be well received in Washington?
I believe that both proposals enjoy sympathy among Biden administration officials. But again, because of the long and close relationship with the Colombian police, they will prefer to speak privately. U.S. government officials should be aware that publicly expressing concern about unacceptable behavior by a partner does not mean breaking with that partner.
Does it mean that they privately scold and ask them to correct or else they will receive a financial or arms ban reprimand?
Yes. In some cases, if, for example, a military unit is prohibited from receiving aid by the Leahy Law (the U.S. will not provide foreign military assistance to human rights violators), such a prohibition will be communicated privately to the state. Where such lists [of banned units] exist, they are also kept in reserve. Uniformed personnel who have not been cleared or whose names are in the database of suspected human rights violators may not receive training in the U.S. or enter the country. [Note: “enter the country” was added by editors. Visa denial does not automatically accompany Leahy Law disapproval.]
In one of your articles, recently published by El Espectador, you state that if the Biden administration pushes the Duque administration to opt for the path of dialogue to face the current crisis, “it would be developing a framework” for all Latin America where several countries are facing “authoritarian populism”. What do you mean by this term and to which political phenomena are you referring to?
Worldwide, democracy is in retreat as leaders are being elected who ignore institutional controls, constantly lie, attack the media, call their opponents “terrorists” or worse, and seek to stay in power by any means. Venezuela and Russia were the pioneers, but it also happened in Hungary, Turkey, the Philippines, Brazil, El Salvador and many other countries. The United States just had such a president for four years, and he is leading one of our two main political parties. What is happening in Colombia today is a big test: whether democratic institutions can channel desperate social demands, stemming from generations of inequality, or not. The Peace Accord was a great vote of confidence in these institutions. Can Colombia resolve this crisis through dialogue without violence and without resorting to a populist figure? If so, Colombia would be an astonishing example for the rest of the world in this troubled beginning of the 21st century.
Or else, could “authoritarian populism” win in the 2022 election?
It is quite possible that an authoritarian populist candidate could win, yes. At both ideological extremes there may be candidates who see institutions as obstacles or who see themselves as the saviors of the country.
You are not only an expert in security matters but also in human rights. Could the Colombian state be subject to sanctions promoted by Washington, the United Nations and other organizations for the violation of the rights of demonstrators, in addition to the fact that it already has a negative record for the assassination of defenders, social leaders, and former combatants?
This really depends on the Prosecutor-General’s Office [Fiscalía] and the Colombian justice system. We know that human rights violations are occurring at an unacceptable level. Will Colombian institutions identify those responsible and hold them accountable? Will they do so in an efficient manner so that the victims don’t have to wait 10 years for a result? If so, it would be a hopeful break from a very bitter history of impunity in Colombia. If not, then, yes, there will be sanctions. U.S. law, for example, prohibits aid to units (police or military) that commit abuses with impunity. And the Inter-American System and the International Criminal Court are also there for cases in which a country’s judicial system proves unwilling or unable to bring to justice perpetrators of serious human rights violations.
It has been seen that the Duque government’s response to protests has been violent repression, even of peaceful demonstrations. While the official language is partially conciliatory, the shock troops (ESMAD and others) are authorized to attack, reduce, and capture. How can the Biden administration call out the national administration for its handling of street grievances?
Although the Biden administration values human rights much more than the Trump administration, it also thinks about stability and the geopolitical reality of the continent. It is concerned about any symptom of instability in a country considered a close ally, in a region facing challenges from Russia and China, sometimes through Venezuela. Meanwhile, the United States has a longstanding relationship with the Colombian police and doesn’t want to risk it with public criticism. That said, U.S. officials can’t possibly support the brutal tactics of units such as ESMAD, because they know that such tactics prolong and escalate protests unnecessarily. They must be aware that such practices continue to worsen the instability they are so concerned about.
I’m around much of the day, but writing on deadlines so not feeling chatty. (How to contact me)
I have a mid-day call with some European NGOs and a late afternoon meeting at the Colombian embassy. Otherwise I’m at home preparing for some of five panel talks or lectures I’m giving on Friday and Saturday. Doing that will require me to have e-mail and other communications turned off for large segments of the day.
This is a rough week, but I’m sort of reachable this afternoon. (How to contact me)
I produced a lot of “content” in the past few days and will post it, or links to it, here later today. This morning I’ve got a coalition meeting on civil-military relations and an internal staff meeting. In the afternoon I’ll be assembling one of a few talks I’m giving later in the week about civil-military relations in Latin America. I’ll be intermittently reachable, though will spend some time with e-mail and whatsapp turned off.
Cross-posted from WOLA’s colombiapeace.org site. During at least the first half of 2021, we’re producing weekly updates in English about peace accord implementation and related topics. Get these in your e-mail by signing up to this Google group.
As of May 20, the database of protest-related deaths maintained by the NGOs Temblores and Indepaz totaled 51 victims of fatalities: 50 civilians and one police agent. In 35 cases for which the groups could name an alleged perpetrator, 29 were police, of whom 18 were likely members of the National Police’s Mobile Anti-Disturbances Squadron (ESMAD). Six likely perpetrators were civilians. Of the 51 killings, 38 took place in Cali or its environs. Eight people died between May 17 and 20, all in the Cali metropolitan area.
José Miguel Vivanco, the director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas Division, tweeted that his organization has received credible information about 58 deaths in the context of the protests, of which it has been able to confirm 19.
One of the best-known former FARC leaders was killed, probably in Venezuela’s state of Zulia, probably during the beginning of the week. Seuxis Hernandez alias Jesús Santrich, a 53-year-old, nearly blind guerrilla ideologue who returned to arms in 2019, was killed under circumstances that remain unclear.
Jesús Santrich was very close to Iván Márquez, the top leader who led the FARC’s negotiating team in Havana between 2012 and 2016. At the negotiations, Santrich was noted for his hardline views and occasional inflammatory statements.
In April 2018, police arrested Santrich on charges of conspiring to send cocaine to the United States during the post-peace accord period. Video appeared to show Santrich, who was brought into a meeting with DEA informants by Iván Márquez’s nephew, assenting to a drug deal. A year later, Santrich was released from prison when the transitional justice tribunal (JEP) decided there was insufficient evidence to prove that Santrich had committed a crime. Upon his May 2019 release, Santrich was sworn into Colombia’s House of Representatives—then disappeared several days later. He resurfaced in August in a video alongside Iván Márquez and other former guerrilla leaders, carrying a weapon as Márquez announced their rearmament as a dissident group called the “Segunda Marquetalia.” (Marquetalia was the site of the 1964 Army attack that gave rise to the FARC.)
A May 18 statement from the Segunda Marquetalia alleged that Colombian Army commandos entered Venezuelan territory and intercepted a vehicle in which Santrich was traveling, just over the border from Colombia in the northern Serranía de Perijá region. The statement said the troops killed Santrich, cut off his pinky finger, and flew back into Colombia in a yellow helicopter.
Defense Minister Diego Molano confirmed that the government had heard word of Santrich’s death. The Venezuelan government has said nothing. No image of a body has emerged.
Colombian media published other rumors, among them that Santrich was killed by mercenaries seeking reward money, or that the killing was the work of a rival, larger FARC dissident band, the “First Front” structure headed by alias “Gentil Duarte,” who had rejected the 2016 peace accord and never demobilized.
Because Santrich was more of an ideologist than a military strategist or financial coordinator, and probably commanded few if any fighters, his death may have little impact on the balance of power between the Colombian armed groups that operate with much freedom inside Venezuela. These include the Segunda Marquetalia, the First Front, the ELN, and smaller paramilitary-descended or narcotrafficking groups. For the Segunda Marquetalia, the loss of Santrich is probably more of a symbolic than a strategic blow.
His killing draws attention to Zulia, another part of the chaotic Colombia-Venezuela border, after more than two months of fighting further south and east in Venezuela’s Apure state, across from Colombia’s Arauca department. There, the 10th Front, apparently part of the Gentil Duarte organization, has faced the Venezuelan military’s largest offensive in many years. The 10th Front has perhaps 300 fighters, a Colombian Army source tells La Silla Vacía, of which about 60 are in Colombia.
That offensive may have hit the population of Apure’s borderlands harder than it has hit the 10th Front. More than 6,000 Venezuelan citizens have fled to Colombia, denouncing brutal abuse at the hands of the Venezuelan military and other security forces. The 10th Front, however, has hit the Venezuelan military quite hard, killing at least 16 soldiers. It continues to hold eight soldiers captive, and is reportedly in talks with at least a faction of the Venezuelan Army.
Venezuelan military analyst Jackeline Benarroche told Tal Cual that the Venezuelan military’s performance in Apure leaves big questions about its combat capacity, its professionalism, and the obsolescence of some of its equipment. “They sent many troops to try to control, but they did not evaluate well the nature of the people they were going to confront, nor the scope of the situation and the migration to Colombia.” At Efecto Cocuyo, analyst Javier Mayorca sees the border tensions worsening further: “It is not going to end in the immediate future, it can be prolonged and extended in geographical terms. If one connects the dots, one begins to see an increasingly extensive border area where there are various interests in dispute.”
By a 5-3 vote on May 21, Colombia’s Constitutional Court upheld—rescued from oblivion, really—a key commitment of the peace accord’s second chapter. For the next two congressional terms (2022-2030), Colombia’s 172-seat House of Representatives will have 16 more seats. Each will be held by an elected representative of conflict victims, from one of the zones hit hardest by the conflict with the FARC. These representatives may not be from established political parties, including the party formed by the former FARC: they should come from victims’ organizations.
This commitment of section 2.3.6 of the peace accord had appeared= dead. In 2017, a bill to create the special congressional districts for victims passed Colombia’s House of Representatives, and passed the Senate by a vote of 50 to 7 at the end of November. That, apparently, wasn’t enough. The Senate parliamentarian ruled that the measure had failed, arguing that it needed 52 votes to pass, as there are 102 senators. In fact, there were 98 senators at the time, because four senators had lost their seats due to legal problems like corruption.
Legal challenges to revive the “special peace districts” foundered in lower courts, and this promise of the accord appeared nearly dead. In December 2019, though, Colombia’s Constitutional Court agreed to consider the case and review the 2017 Senate vote.
The Court has not issued details of its decision yet, so timetables are not clear. But it appears certain that most of Colombia’s 9 million victims will soon have a louder voice in the legislature.
If the country succeeds, it could become an inspiration for the entire region—and reduce the appeal of anti-democratic forces
Nueve millones de víctimas del conflicto armado declaradas oficialmente en el territorio nacional tendrán representación política en el Congreso de la República. Así lo determinó este viernes la Corte Constitucional
With the farc officially gone, they are more comfortable with left-wing politics. They also have more precarious living standards
El Tribunal Superior de Pasto ordenó al Ministerio del Interior garantizar la consulta previa de comunidades afro e indígenas de Nariño, a quienes no los han tenido en cuenta para el eventual retorno de la aspersión
Estos videos serán culpa de Luigi Echeverri, un asesor irresponsable e incendiario al que Duque acude cuando se siente acorralado
En 2020 confirmamos un total de 969 agresiones individuales contra personas que a través de sus actividades ejercen diferentes tipos de liderazgo en las regiones; y dentro de estos hechos violentos, registramos 199 asesinatos
Las autoridades no han precisado quién disparó contra la joven, causando su deceso
El general Jorge Luis Vargas, director de la institución, respondió a los cuestionamientos y le afirmó a EL TIEMPO que “la Policía Nacional sí se va a reformar”
Es necesario entender qué son las AGC. Si no son paramilitares, ¿por qué se autodenominan “autodefensas”?
La Defensoría del Pueblo tienen entre sus cuentas por el Paro Nacional 106 reportes de violencia basada en género, de los cuales 23 corresponden a denuncias por violencia sexual
Ya involucra no sólo a Apure, en donde los enfrentamientos empezaron el 21 de abril, sino también el Zulia, el estado en donde habría ocurrido el supuesto asesinato del guerrillero colombiano
El tema migratorio ha sido un frecuente punto de fricción en la relación históricamente difícil de Dominicana con Haití
Underneath the savvy propaganda apparatus, Nayib Bukele is an old-style reactionary
As the relationship with Washington sours, Bukele has increasingly played up the burgeoning relationship with China
When forensic teams searched his house, they discovered at least seven pits containing bodies, some of which may have been buried as long as two years ago
USAID is redirecting assistance away from these institutions, the National Civilian Police, and the Institute for Access to Public Information
Desde enero a la fecha se han encontrado 12 aeronaves que están relacionadas con ilícitos, además se han decomisado 3 mil 377 paquetes de cocaína
On the same day Pérez Molina had the charge against him dropped, the Attorney General’s Office announced the arrest of Juan Francisco Solórzano Foppa, the country’s former tax chief who helped build a corruption case against Pérez Molina
As part of the exercise, U.S. military engineers will also work side-by-side with Guatemalan military forces to renovate a training site at a Guatemalan military base in Poptún, Peten
Biden should grant the request of 69 members of Congress, who wrote to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken , to appoint a high-level, neutral, independent, and well-resourced special envoy to Haiti
Fiscalías investigan a director y subdirector de cárcel de Támara por torturas y por abusar de los internos
El problema es cuando se confunde indemnización con chantaje para hurtar el derecho a la justicia
De 398 casos en seguimiento o atención, 187 han recibido amenazas, 101 algún tipo de agresión, (…) hay 44 que no tienen confirmación de riesgo
Todos los días son asesinadas 97 personas en promedio, al menos 10 de ellas mujeres
Ortega is seeking his fourth consecutive presidential term in November. Nicaragua’s Supreme Electoral Council and congress have been narrowing the space for maneuver for the country’s opposition
Nearly 30% of people apprehended at the border last month had repeatedly crossed, a CBP spokesman said, compared with 7% in the 2019 fiscal year
Biden needs to move faster to give the nation a more effective and humanitarian border-enforcement plan, because the longer he takes to bring one into focus, the less credibility he has as a force for positive change
Se determinó que el mes de enero fue el más violento durante el periodo señalado con 228 casos
With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, issued an unusually direct statement on May 20 voicing alarm about a major state’s treatment of protection-seeking migrants. Grandi called on the U.S. government “to swiftly lift” the pandemic measure known as “Title 42,” for the part of the U.S. Code that allows border closures during quarantines. Since March 2020, Title 42 has swiftly expelled more than 750,000 undocumented migrants apprehended at the border back to Mexico or their countries of origin—including nearly all migrants who would seek asylum or other protection.
The Trump administration justified the mass expulsions in the name of public health, though later reporting revealed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did not view it as necessary to expel asylum seekers. Still, the Biden administration has maintained the expulsions order, with no timetable for lifting it.
“The use of Title 42 is not a source of pleasure, but rather frankly, a source of pain,” Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on April 30, adding “the timeline is as quickly as possible.” Todd Miller, the official performing the duties of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner, told the House Appropriations Committee on May 19 that his agency is “preparing for the eventuality of Title 42 to be lifted.”
The UNHCR statement calls on the United States “to restore access to asylum for the people whose lives depend on it, in line with international legal and human rights obligations.” Grandi acknowledges that in its first four months, the Biden administration has been building capacity—CBP’s Miller mentioned five “soft-sided,” or tent-based, processing facilities coming online near ports of entry—and is now allowing a few vulnerable asylum-seekers to present in the United States. “A system which allows a small number of asylum seekers to be admitted daily, however, carries with it a number of risks, and is not an adequate response.”
As noted in last week’s update, DHS has stopped a program of daily flights that were transporting asylum-seeking Central American families from parts of the border where Mexico was not allowing expulsions with young children, to other parts of the border where Mexico does allow such expulsions. That update also noted an agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has been in negotiations with the Biden administration over a lawsuit challenging Title 42 expulsions of families, to allow 35 of the most vulnerable expelled family members to re-enter the United States to pursue their protection claims on U.S. soil.
That number expanded this week. The ACLU told CBS News on May 18 that DHS has agreed to allow up to 250 of the most vulnerable asylum seekers to present inside the United States each day. “So far, 2,000 asylum-seekers have been admitted into the U.S. through the ACLU’s negotiations with the Biden administration,” the ACLU’s Lee Gelernt told CBS.
The modest increase in access to asylum is a stopgap measure. The 250 would be identified by advocacy groups. This “puts the burden of deciding who gets access on NGOs, which is really not our role,” Tracey Horan of the Kino Border Initiative in Nogales, Arizona told Public Radio International (PRI). The loosening of Title 42 is no substitute for the ACLU lawsuit, Gelernt told PRI. “We are troubled, to say the least, that the Biden administration has chosen to keep a Trump administration policy that was always a sham, was never justified by public health.”
Meanwhile, about 700 expelled asylum seekers remain stranded in the dangerous border city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico. A tent encampment in the Plaza de la República near the port of entry is to be moved about a mile west to a space next to Reynosa’s church-run Senda de Vida shelter.
The Biden administration meanwhile continues a slow but steady unwinding of the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols, or “Remain in Mexico,” policy, which in 2019 and 2020 sent more than 71,000 asylum-seeking migrants from Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries back across the border into Mexico to await their U.S. hearings. After canceling Remain in Mexico on January 20, the administration has been working with UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies to bring asylum seekers into the United States to pursue their claims.
As of the end of April, Syracuse University’s TRAC Immigration data project reports, 8,387 asylum seekers had been brought into the United States under the Remain in Mexico unwinding. Another 18,087 people with open cases remained in Mexico. By May 14, the number permitted to enter the United States had risen to 10,707, a UN official told Border Report. “They’re extremely happy to be back. The program is unwinding extremely well. It was well thought out, well planned,” added Ruben Garcia of El Paso’s Annunciation House shelter.
Beyond the approximately 26,500 who still had open cases when the Biden administration took over, many migrants subject to “Remain in Mexico” had missed their court dates in the United States due to security reasons or other obstacles to showing up at a Mexican border city’s port of entry at the appointed time. Some were even being held by kidnappers when they were supposed to appear in court. As a result, U.S. immigration courts threw out their asylum claims because they were no-shows. BuzzFeed reported this week that DHS officials “have agreed that those ordered deported in absentia should have their cases reopened.”
One migrant subject to “Remain in Mexico” who will never get the chance to pursue his asylum case in the United States is Cristian San Martín Estrada, a citizen of Cuba. Estrada had been waiting in Mexico since 2019, when he was returned as an 18-year-old asylum seeker. He was scheduled to re-enter the United States “in the coming days,” according to a tweet from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Cristian San Martín Estrada was shot to death in Ciudad Juárez on the evening of May 17.
The Santa Fe Dreamers Project, a public interest law firm, shared with ProPublica’s Dara Lind some documents obtained from CBP through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. They reveal that U.S. asylum lawyers were flagged and interrogated by a secretive CBP unit, its “Tactical Terrorism Response Team,” apparently based on questionable and politicized intelligence.
El Paso-based asylum lawyer Taylor Levy (interviewed about her work in a May 2020 WOLA podcast) tells ProPublica that CBP held her for hours at the port of entry in January 2019, when she returned from dinner with friends in Ciudad Juárez. ProPublica reports, “She didn’t know why she was being questioned by an agent who’d introduced himself as a counterterrorism specialist,” along with attorney Héctor Ruiz.
The documents revealed that the Tactical Terrorism Response Team was acting on incorrect intelligence alleging that Levy had met with members of a October 2018 migrant “caravan.”
These “caravans”—migrants who, seeking to avoid having to pay a smuggler, attempted to cross Mexico in large groups for safety in numbers—never added up to more than a single-digit percentage of migration from Central America to the United States. Today, Mexican or Guatemalan forces tend to disperse caravans long before they get anywhere near the U.S. border.
Nonetheless, the caravan phenomenon had alarmed the Trump administration and conservative media outlets, leading the president to send active-duty troops to the border, where some remain today. Now we know that the Trump administration also devoted CBP’s counter-terrorism resources to caravan-related missions, and that it cast its net so widely as to include asylum lawyers.
Among the documents newly released to the Santa Fe Dreamers Project is a remarkable mid-2019 Border Patrol intelligence report from El Paso, which reads more like a Breitbart editorial than the work of intelligence professionals:
Mass migration from South America into the United States is said to be coordinated at some level by non profit organizations who wish to line their pockets with proceeds deriving from migrants transportation fees up to the U.S Mexico border, and ultimately proceeds deriving from the migrants paying for their asylum case lawyers once they have arrived to the United States.
The report, ProPublica states, “goes on to associate this effort with ‘other groups such as Antifa,’” which is not in fact a “group.”
Taylor Levy’s colleagues recall that she was critical of the migrant caravan tactic, and had not met with its members, nearly all of whom went to Tijuana, not Ciudad Juárez. Ruiz, the other lawyer, had spoken to an assembly of caravan participants when they passed through Mexico City, advising them about the stringency of U.S. asylum law and the low probability that those with unclear claims would be allowed to stay.
Levy and Ruiz “also recall being asked about their beliefs,” ProPublica continues. “Levy remembers an agent asking her why she worked for a Catholic aid organization if she didn’t believe in God, while Ruiz told ProPublica they were asked about their opinions of the Trump administration and the economy.”
After weeks of steady decline, including a sharp drop during May 9-13, Border Patrol encountered a larger number of non-Mexican unaccompanied migrant children during May 16-19. The agency averaged 393 encounters with unaccompanied kids so far this week, similar to the 387 daily encounters two weeks ago but up sharply from last week’s 268.
This may just be a normal fluctuation, while arrivals of unaccompanied kids remain over 100 per day fewer than they were in late March and early April. Other possible explanations could be seasonal variation, as May is often the heaviest month of the year for migration; smugglers adjusting to Mexico’s increased migrant interdiction efforts; more parents expelled under Title 42 making the gut-wrenching decision to separate and send their children across the border alone; or an increase in children from one or two particular countries.
The number of “encountered” children in Border Patrol’s holding facilities remains a tiny fraction of what it was, an average of 736 per day this week, compared to more than 5,000 at the end of March. This means that the agency remains able to hand unaccompanied kids over quickly to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). A 2008 law requires that ORR shelter non-Mexican children while seeking to place them with relatives or other sponsors in the United States, with whom they stay while the immigration court system considers their asylum or protection needs. (Most Mexican children are quickly deported, as the law allows, regardless of their protection needs.)
As of May 19, ORR had 19,344 unaccompanied migrant children in its shelter system. The agency expanded its capacity by hastily opening up 13 emergency facilities around the country, at sites like convention centers, tent camps, and a U.S. Army base, Fort Bliss, in El Paso.
Unlike ORR’s normal shelters, these emergency facilities are not licensed childcare facilities: instead, they more closely resemble shelters for hurricane evacuees, with rows of cots in giant rooms and few activities to pass the time. On May 14 HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra visited one such site, at the Long Beach, California convention center. He acknowledged that conditions at the various emergency facilities vary “site by site.”
Child welfare advocates have voiced alarm. Lawyers permitted to visit facilities under the 1997 Flores settlement agreement described to CBS News “limited access to showers, soiled clothes and undercooked food” and children feeling “sad and desperate,” even suicidal.
“As of late April,” CBS notes, “more than 300 migrant boys had spent over 50 days at a Dallas convention center” with no ability to go outside. At Fort Bliss, “multiple white tents…each house about 900 children, who sleep on bunk cots.” About 4,400 children are currently at the army base, and the number could grow to 10,000 as the pandemic’s ebbing causes other facilities, like convention centers, to revert to their original purposes.
“I know the administration wants to take a victory lap for moving children out of Border Patrol stations—and they deserve credit for doing that,” Leecia Welch of the National Center for Youth Law, one of the lawyers permitted to tour some facilities, told the New York Times. “But the truth is, thousands of traumatized children are still lingering in massive detention sites on military bases or convention centers, and many have been relegated to unsafe and unsanitary conditions.”
Under great pressure to do so, ORR has been working to speed its discharges of children from shelters to families and sponsors. The agency has discharged an average of 481 children per day this week, down slightly from over 500 during the previous two weeks. An HHS official told CBS News that children are spending an average of 29 days in its shelters, down from 42 days in late January. Obstacles to faster discharges include a shortage of case officers and the time-consuming nature of vetting relatives and sponsors, including background checks, to ensure that children will be safe with them.
I’m pretty slammed today. (How to contact me)
I’m in the midst of writing two internal memos (one done, one to go), a weekly border update (drafted), a written interview with a Colombian paper (drafted), and an article for another Colombian publication (semi-drafted). And I’m recording a podcast about Brazil in the early afternoon. I won’t be able to come up for air much today, and will be hard to contact.
Desde la década de 1990, diversos informes han adjudicado casos de cáncer linfoma no Hodgkin y de neurotoxicidad como producto del contacto con el glifosato
An analysis of video evidence in four cases of protester deaths shows the extent to which police appear to have overstepped their rules of engagement
While the issue of the Leahy Law specifically is not an issue for Colombians to decide, many are looking with desperation toward foreign actors to pressure their government in a way that the people have been unable to
The human rights organization is calling on Secretary of State Blinken to immediately cease the direct or indirect supply, sale, or transfer of equipment used for repression
Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Eduardo Tellez Betancourt told Reuters his team of four specialists had delivered its report on Haiti’s kidnapping crisis on Tuesday after three months of on- the-ground research
Who’s fighting whom, exactly? And why? It’s complicated. But here’s what we know
U.S. lawmakers and analysts said the lists appeared to exclude a number of officials who have faced corruption allegations in recent years, including Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández
In recent weeks, Homeland Security officials have agreed that those ordered deported in absentia should have their cases reopened
“Estamos advirtiendo de un camino sin vuelta atrás, en el cual el Gobierno está utilizando a las FFAA para asuntos de orden interno y de seguridad pública, cuestiones que no les competen”, aseguró
Its design, as well as past fights with the executive branch, have forced the agency to find ways to be minimally intrusive
All signs indicate that the foundational document they will draft will enshrine principles of civic participation, justice, gender equality and Indigenous rights
“A large part of the Colombian establishment doesn’t understand that these calls for change are coming from the people in the streets of cities, and not from an armed guerrilla group in the countryside”
The outpouring quickly morphed into a widespread expression of anger over poverty and inequality — which have risen as the virus has spread — and over the violence with which the police have confronted the movement
Las historias de vulneración de derechos se repiten en aquellas ciudades donde las expresiones callejeras de inconformidad con el actual gobierno nacional trascurren de manera pacífica y en las que acaban en batallas campales
“Rape has been used during these protests as a weapon of war, as well as a weapon of torture to punish those marching”
La Corte Constitucional ha respaldado la transferencia de esas funciones a la Policía por el desbordamiento del Estado en materia carcelaria
In Colombia, and many other countries, security forces’ attacks on protesters have led to nationwide reckonings with injustice
Aunque la Fiscalía dice que es aliada del Clan del Golfo de alias Otoniel, la Policía dice que es hace poco forjó un pacto mafioso con la Segunda Marquetalia de “Iván Márquez”
The U.S.-Colombia Action Plan (USCAP) will resume training in May 2021. USCAP training halted when the stakeholder nations’ implemented COVID-19 mitigation strategies to protect their populations
Just before the death of Mr. Hernández, the Colombian Supreme Court had indicated it was in favor of extraditing him to the United States to answer to drug charges
Aunque la muerte de Santrich resuene en Colombia como una derrota para las disidencias en general, lo cierto es que en Arauca el frente Décimo está ganando la guerra. No solo a la Segunda Marquetalia, también al régimen venezolano
Declaró que desde que el país regresó a un sistema democrático “el Ejército ha sido el principal baluarte de que la estabilidad política del país se mantenga”
Al carecer de servicios sanitarios y sin agua, los reos castigados tenían que hacer sus necesidades fisiológicas en pedazos de papel, bolsas y botes, volviendo el sitio insano
“El gasto en las Fuerzas Armadas es actualmente de 140 mil millones de pesos, el nivel más alto registrado, los mayores niveles de gasto coinciden con el mayor uso del ejército para combatir los crímenes de la delincuencia organizada”
Mientras que el Ejército está entrenado bajo una lógica de combate al enemigo y protección del territorio, las policías son quienes, desde una lógica eminentemente local, regulan y controlan las interacciones cotidianas de la ciudadanía
Daniel Ortega acusó al embajador de Estados Unidos, Kevin Sullivan, de elegir los «candidatos» para los partidos políticos de oposición que correrán en las próximas elecciones de noviembre
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine., said during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on National Guard and Reserve forces that the Defense Department received a request from Homeland Security to continue the Guard’s border deployment into the 2022 fiscal year
This report provides an update on metering lists, asylum seekers, and migrant shelters along the U.S.-Mexico border amid CBP’s asylum processing suspension. It documents approximately 18,700 asylum seekers on waitlists in 8 Mexican border cities
A Cuban asylum-seeker who was forced to wait in Mexico under a Trump-era policy was fatally shot Monday night in Ciudad Juárez a few days before he was to be allowed into the US
Unos 11 presos políticos que se encontraban en la sede de las FAES en La Quebradita que serían trasladados presuntamente a cárceles comunes
I’m most reachable at the beginning of the morning and mid-day. (How to contact me)
I’ve got an internal meeting in the morning, and in the afternoon a brief border coalition meeting and a meeting with some international organization representatives to talk about Colombia. When not doing that I’ll be doing some research, writing an article about Colombia, writing much of our weekly border update, and hopefully keeping up with e-mail and whatsapps.
It’s also a pleasant spring day—one of the last we’re going to have here in Washington before it gets really hot—so I may have to break and go for a long walk while the sun is up.
I’ll be sort of reachable in the morning and mid-day. All meetings after that. (How to contact me)
Getting a bit of a late start today after catching up on sleep. I’ll be doing some writing and answering messages until early afternoon, when I’m meeting with an academic colleague, Senate committee staff, and a coalition of groups working on Colombia. Those commitments will make me impossible to contact all afternoon.
Rear Admiral Don Gabrielson, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/U.S. Fourth Fleet (USNAVSO/FOURTHFLT), hosted delegates from the Brazilian Navy for the 15th annual Maritime Staff Talks (MST), May 5
In a major blow to the traditional political forces in Chile, weekend voting for the 155-member constitutional assembly gave 48 seats to independent candidates, most of them identified with leftist ideology
Las entidades aseguran que se mantiene activo el mecanismo de búsqueda urgente en 134 casos
Con la intención en firme de visitar Colombia, la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) aguarda la respuesta de la Cancillería colombiana sobre si una delegación suya puede arribar por octava vez al país en los próximos días para adelantar una visita de trabajo
“We don’t have leaders,” the kid responds. “Colombia killed our leaders. You can speak to the community”
Por lo menos 30 personas han sido agredidas en sus ojos durante las manifestaciones del paro nacional de 2021. Catorce jóvenes que denuncian haber recibido disparos de la Policía y el Esmad en sus rostros hablaron con El Espectador
The confrontation between armed civilians and indigenous groups in Cali has highlighted unaddressed forms of violence that the state has yet to acknowledge
An SEA poll out last week indicated Latinos here feel that keeping socialism out of Florida is a bigger issue than jobs
The emergence of the list of purportedly five corrupt officials is likely to heighten tensions with Bukele
Discussions included how the Guatemalan Army envisions leveraging the ALLP’s methodology and processes to update doctrine, support army-wide modernization, and to employ available resources more wisely
The DHS attributed the damage to construction undertaken during former President Donald Trump’s administration, which the DHS said “blew large holes” in the levees
Any future border freedom of movement policy would be the twin pillar with another fundamental right, the right to stay home and live a dignified life
El Paso leads the nation in welcoming back asylum-seekers placed in the controversial Migrant Protection Protocols program
Under the new agreement, the Biden administration has committed to processing up to 250 asylum-seekers deemed to be vulnerable by advocacy groups on a daily basis and permitting them to continue their legal cases on American soil
A bottleneck continues to build in Mexico near the US-Mexico border, as a public health order invoked by the Trump administration remains in place and shuts out many migrants and asylum-seekers
The conditions in the Reynosa tent encampment, some say, are worse than in Matamoros due to violent crimes reported in the border town
El Gobierno actual ya había presentado en las cámaras el proyecto FONDEF (Fondo de Defensa), que, por medio del uso de un porcentaje del presupuesto nacional, lograría obtener recursos mínimos que permitan un cierto nivel de recuperación de capacidades militares
About 27,000 Yanomami live on the reserve which is the size of Portugal. But in recent years, the territory has seen a new invasion by about 20,000 wildcat miners
Chile’s ruling coalition of Conservative President Sebastián Piñera was the biggest loser of the weekend, as a fragmented leftwing opposition took a sizeable majority of the 155 seats
The document that emerges from the wrangling will go to a public vote in mid-2022. If rejected, the current constitution will remain in force
El Gobierno ya había recibido mensajes diplomáticos duros de sus aliados
Fabio Espitia Garzón, director de la Justicia Penal Militar, dice que, a pesar del desprestigio histórico de esa entidad, no va a haber impunidad en los casos por las muertes de decenas de manifestantes
El general Alarcón desmiente hechos diferentes a los que denunció la víctima y a los que han retomado la mayoría de organizaciones sociales
It’s getting more and more difficult to come to an agreement because the government is very weak. So I think that conversations are going to take a long while
No es cierto que Cali sea una ciudad hoy sitiada por bloqueos y protestas de unos pocos, pues es un levamiento popular encabezado por la juventud y por muchos sectores que se concreta en control territorial, control de vías y carreteras en toda la macrorregión
La capital del Valle lleva una semana sin homicidios ni hechos de violencia en medio de las jornadas del paro nacional, sin embargo, los retenes extorsivos continúan y la gente se siente estigmatizada
“Es un presidente que está hablando con los mismos, que no conecta con el ciudadano y que, adicionalmente, está encerrado en la Casa de Nariño”
Informe de Temblores ONG e Indepaz a la CIDH sobre la violación sistemática de la Convención Americana y los alcances jurisprudenciales de la Corte IDH con respecto al uso de la fuerza pública contra la sociedad civil en Colombia en el marco de las protestas realizadas entre el 28 de abril y el 12 de mayo de 2021
22 días después del secuestro de ocho efectivos por parte de las FARC, fue cuando el Alto Mando confirmó el hecho. Analistas militares asocian el silencio a la improvisación manifiesta, las debilidades en el profesionalización castrense, que se ha traducido en fallas operativas, y la falta de control del territorio
Brig. Gen. Barrientos, who was sworn in as commander in March 2019, took several courses at WHINSEC in 2007-2008, including the Command and General Staff Officer course and the Joint Interagency Operations course
La Fiscalía tiene abiertas 34 carpetas de investigación contra el grupo de élite de la Marina por 47 posibles víctimas
Este es uno de los estados con mayor presencia del crimen organizado, con el Cártel del Golfo y el Cártel del Noreste (escisión de los antiguos Zetas) disputándose el territorio. Además, aquí son continuas las denuncias de violaciones a los derechos humanos perpetradas por Ejército, Guardia Nacional, Marina o policía estatal
Once a left-wing darling, López Obrador has stepped up his attacks on the press, civil society groups, and watchdog agencies that question his actions
Mexico is facing its own crisis — an escalating humanitarian emergency caused by what authorities and advocates call an unprecedented increase in migrant families traversing its territory
El politólogo estadounidense- quien residió en el Perú- afirmó que los peruanos no quieren volver a un régimen fujimorista, pero tampoco quieren ir a uno bolivariano
Trump officials cited conspiracies about Antifa to justify interrogating immigration lawyers with a special terrorism unit. The documents also show that more lawyers were targeted than previously known
According to official data released this week, 30 percent of all families encountered along the border in April hailed from countries other than Mexico and the Central American countries
Growing numbers of migrant families are making the heart-wrenching decision to separate from their children and send them into America alone
Biden officials have quietly agreed to narrow but substantial changes — among them, an end to the lateral expulsion flights and expelling migrants late at night, which exacerbate their vulnerability
Thousands of immigrant children who have been separated by US immigration authorities after showing up at the border with relatives who aren’t their parents or legal guardians
Diciembre de 2020 fue el mes que tuvo el menor registro de detenciones arbitrarias. En enero de 2021 no hubo ningún caso
Over the last year and a half, the El Perú Syndicate (Sindicato del Perú) – a gang that extorts illegal miners and operates crude gold processing plants in southern Bolívar state – has been the target of repeated operations by Venezuelan security forces
I’ll be intermittently available and unavailable all day. (How to contact me)
I’ve tried to keep this day clear on my calendar to write a 4,000-word article on civil-military relations in Latin America, and I’ve been mostly successful in keeping it clear. I do, however, have about 500 e-mails to process that I couldn’t get to last week, when I was writing that New York Times piece, producing that podcast, and writing the weekly border and Colombia updates.
I want to spend the morning and early afternoon updating news and email (I got too busy to post news links here over the past several days), while watching the event about Colombia that WOLA is co-hosting. (I have no specific duties for that, but want to watch and recommend it.) I have a 2PM meeting with legislative staff, and starting after that I’m going to turn off devices and communications apps so that I can have several solid hours of writing time.
In addition to an article on the state of civil-military relations, I’m also giving two talks about the subject next week at the Latin American Studies Association congress. As I put those together, I’ve been playing around with a screencasting app on my Mac, and pretty pleased with the results. So as I practice, I look forward to having a screencast to share here.
I just sent off another e-mail update to those who’ve subscribed. It’s got links to a podcast and a New York Times column about Colombia, robust weekly updates about Colombia and the U.S.-Mexico border, some upcoming event listings, and some funny tweets.
I should be reachable in the afternoon. (How to contact me)
My schedule is largely clear, other than a long internal meeting in the morning and a mid-afternoon check-in with some groups working on the border. I have an article to finish writing and a backlog of unanswered e-mail to wind down, as it’s been very busy lately.
Cross-posted from WOLA’s colombiapeace.org site. During at least the first half of 2021, we’re producing weekly updates in English about peace accord implementation and related topics. Get these in your e-mail by signing up to this Google group.
The security forces’ response to Colombia’s nationwide protests became less lethal over the past week. Three people involved in protests were killed in the 8 days between May 7 and 14, increasing the overall confirmed toll from 39 to 42, according to a database maintained by the non-governmental organizations Temblores and Indepaz.
Heavy, and often outraged, international scrutiny of the police and military response has likely contributed to restraint. So has a reduction in the protests’ overall intensity, as formal negotiations begin. While large turnouts continue in Bogotá, Medellín, and elsewhere, they are not consistently large every single day. Colombia’s southwest, though, remains very active, especially the cities of Cali, Valle del Cauca; Popayán, Cauca; Neiva, Huila; and Pasto, Nariño.
As of 11:30pm on May 12, Temblores had counted 39 killings committed by security forces; 1,055 “arbitrary detentions,” 442 “violent interventions in the framework of peaceful protests” including 133 uses of lethal firearms and 30 protesters suffering eye damage, and 16 cases of sexual violence.
Hundreds of people are still missing, with most probably in police custody. Sebastian Lanz, the co-director of Temblores, told Vice that some are being charged with crimes, but others “have ended up in unauthorized ‘clandestine’ detention centers where ‘there is no legal authority to verify the human rights situation there,’” or in “special centers for protection“ where people may be held without charges for up to 12 hours.
Activity remains widespread geographically. On May 12, the protests’ two-week mark, the Defense Ministry’s “Unified Command Post” counted 170 protest activities in 391 of Colombia’s 1,123 municipalities (counties). That day, Defense Minister Diego Molano said that protesters continued to block 80 roads around the country.
In Cali early in the week, protesters maintained blockades stopping most road traffic in and out of the city. Some of these protesters were members of an Indigenous minga (“coming together”) that brought thousands from Cauca, to the south of Cali, to show solidarity with protesters in Colombia’s third-largest city. The blockades generated reports of shortages of goods in Cali, including gasoline, and an inability to get export cargo to Buenaventura, Colombia’s busiest port.
The Defense Ministry deployed 10,000 police and 2,100 soldiers to Cali. Most road blockades were lifted peacefully, but the military and police used heavy force in Siloé, a neighborhood in western Cali that has seen many casualties. On May 9, assailants in civilian clothes shot at indigenous protesters in broad daylight, wounding eight. The minga pulled back to Cauca on May 12, citing government plans for “an armed police and paramilitary attack against our delegations” if it stayed in Cali.
A road blockade in Buga, along the Pan-American Highway north of Cali, was the site of bitter, prolonged clashes between protesters and a combined police-military force on May 13. No deaths were reported. In fact, the Temblores and Indepaz database shows no new deaths in the Cali metropolitan area since May 7. Still, of the 42 fatalities on this list, 29 happened in Cali or the neighboring municipality of Yumbo.
In Cauca’s departmental capital of Popayán on May 12, police threw to the ground and sexually abused a 17-year-old girl who had been using her phone to record abuse during a protest. The girl was taken to an “Immediate Reaction Unit” (URI)—a facility of the Prosecutor-General’s Office (Fiscalía)—where she reported what was done to her. After being freed hours later, the girl reportedly took her own life. Popayán human rights lawyer Lizeth Montero said that a total of three underage girls denounced sexual abuse at the hands of police on May 12.
News of the abuse spurred angry protests in Popayán on May 14, during which some protesters burned down the URI where the girl had been taken. During the police response, an ESMAD anti-riot policeman fired a projectile, possibly a tear-gas canister, into the neck of 22-year-old college student Sebastián Quintero Múnera, killing him.
Rural areas appear to be joining the protests in increasing numbers. About 5,000 coca-growers from rural Cauca converged on Popayán to demand that the government comply with peace accord commitments to assist with the transition to licit crops, and that the government abandon plans to restart a program to eradicate coca by fumigating fields with herbicides from aircraft.
Lucas Villa, a 37-year-old activist who was known for his ebullient nature—he appeared often in videos dancing during protests—died in a hospital in Pereira, Risaralda, on May 10. A gunman on a motorcycle hit Villa with eight bullets during a peaceful protest in Pereira on May 5.
The Prosecutor-General’s Office (Fiscalía) is seeking aggravated homicide charges against a Cali motorcycle police officer who, in a much-shared April 28 video, repeatedly shot and killed a 17-year-old who had run up and kicked him. This is the fourth case of a protest-related fatality for which the Fiscalía has filed charges. On May 12 Prosecutor General Francisco Barbosa told Colombia’s House of Representatives that the Fiscalía had counted 14 homicides so far; by that date Temblores and Indepaz had confirmed 41, including 1 policeman.
Investigations haven’t moved in the case of Maycolt Stiven Florido, a Bogotá barber attacked April 30, on video, by 12 police who accused him wrongly of throwing stones. The police knocked out three of Florido’s teeth, among other injuries, while stealing the equivalent of US$135 and his mobile phone.
President Duque met on May 10 with the Comité del Paro, the group of mostly union leaders that called for the initial April 28 protests. The three hour exploratory meeting yielded little other than a government announcement that it is willing to open a process of negotiations with the Comité, managed on the government side by High Commissioner for Peace Miguel Ceballos.
President Duque announced on May 11 that the government would pay tuition for public university students who come from the bottom three levels of the government’s six-layer income system. The measure would waive tuition for 97 percent of students in public universities.
On May 14 the Comité del Paro, after a long meeting with mediators from the UN and the Catholic Church Episcopal Conference, agreed to the negotiations framework proposed by the government, and the first round of talks is to occur on May 16.
“If the National Government thinks that this process will be managed under the same scheme of the ‘great national conversation’ of late 2019 [after November 2019 protests], consisting of listening, taking notes, and then sitting in front of a computer to see what can be accommodated in the government’s plan and then coming out with what seems feasible, this new dialogue won’t calm things down either,” warned an El Espectador editorial.
An El Tiempo analysis outlines some of the points that a dialogue between the government and protest leaders would be likely to cover. They include basic income guarantees; affordable college education; reopening of schools closed by the pandemic; suspending forced coca eradication, especially fumigation; ending gender, ethnic, and sexual-orientation discrimination; withdrawing a controversial health care reform; and more participation in the national Covid vaccination plan.
La Silla Vacía profiles the 20 members of the Comité del Paro, finding the group to be overwhelmingly male and representative mainly of workers in the formal economy. The Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC), organizers of the “minga” (coming together) that brought thousands of its members to Cali, issued a statement declaring that it does not feel represented by the Comité del Paro.
134 environmental groups signed a statement supporting the protests. They added a list of demands including securing communities’ prior and informed consent, opposing large extractive projects, and opposing coca eradication with the herbicide glyphosate.
Foreign Minister Claudia Blum resigned after 18 months in office, amid a steady drumbeat of international communications voicing concern about the severity of the government’s response to protests. “The country will reject external pronouncements that do not reflect objectivity and seek to fuel polarization in the country,” Blum had said a week earlier. The comment was not well received. Blum was the second cabinet minister to quit since the protests began. Alberto Carrasquilla, the author of the proposed tax hike that first detonated the protests, resigned as finance minister on May 3.
A Datexco telephone poll of 700 adults found 75 percent in favor of the national strike, 15 percent against, and 10 percent with no opinion. 82 percent disapproved of the government’s management of the situation.
President Duque told the New York Times “he did not believe the police department needed significant reform. He said that the police have a ‘zero tolerance’ policy toward abuse, and pointed to the fact that the police inspector general has opened at least 65 investigations into alleged misconduct.”
National Police Commander Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas is among authorities who insist that the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas, along with both of Colombia’s principal networks of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) dissident bands, are behind disturbances. While members of these groups may be taking advantage of disorder to pursue drug trafficking and other criminality, sources in the security forces tell El Espectador that evidence does not point to them playing a leading or coordinating role.
“What we are seeing here,” Gen. Vargas told El Tiempo’s María Isabel Rueda, “is a systematic attack against the police. This has happened in Chile and in other countries around the world, including the United States. There are organized systematic attacks, platforms in foreign countries, with a lot of false news and disinformation, that want to attack the Police for its role in crime containment, not public and peaceful demonstration.” He added, “In the ELN’s computers, in those of the FARC dissidents, we have found intentions to systematically attack the credibility of the police.”
Former president Álvaro Uribe, the maximum leader of President Iván Duque’s Centro Democrático party, called on May 13 for a greater military role in maintaining order during the protests, during an address before Colombia’s House of Representatives. Uribe warned that people exercising their right to “legitimate defense” might begin “the organization of private justice, with all its cruelty and the deinstitutionalization that the country had overcome.”
El Espectador recounted leaked audio of a Google Meet conversation between legislators from the governing Centro Democrático party and business leaders from Pereira, Risaralda. The CD legislators rejected any negotiation with groups carrying out road blockages and suggested boycotting advertising for all media outlets whose reporting has been unfavorable to the government and the security forces.
Business-sector representatives on this call recalled the “dissipated molecular revolution” thesis, popularized by a Nazi-sympathizing Chilean polemicist and advanced by former president Uribe, which contends that even peaceful protest is part of a dispersed, transnational leftist plot to overthrow the government. “They are looking to take over a government and I feel that businessmen have remained quiet on this issue. We need to support the institutional framework, because they have taken advantage of us, light years, in letting the outside world know what is happening in Colombia.”
Of the 11 million Colombians between ages 14 and 28, 3 million (27 percent) are neither employed nor in school. These “ni-nis” are heavily represented in the ongoing protests.
The Ministry of Finance said that the protests are costing the economy about half a trillion pesos (US$135 million) per day.
55 Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging the State Department to more forcefully denounce police brutality in Colombia, to freeze police aid and sales of crowd control equipment, and to promote dialogue.
The leads of the Colombian government’s negotiating team during the 2012-16 peace process with the FARC, Humberto de la Calle and Sergio Jaramillo, published a series of 10 recommendations in El Tiempo outlining how dialogue might go forward, suggesting a big role for young members of Congress and the use of mechanisms envisioned in the peace accord. “If we were able to reach an agreement between the government and the FARC, our institutions can do the same with the citizenry. But this requires, in addition to political will and respect for the other side, methods to reach agreements and guarantees for the participants.”
“One way to move forward is to stop thinking about the peace agreement in terms of concessions made to the much-disliked former FARC combatants,” reads an Americas Quarterly analysis from former finance minister Mauricio Cárdenas. “The peace agreement is about building a new social contract, where marginalized groups will have more political representation while bringing the state in, in the form of roads and schools, to some parts of Colombia for the first time in our history.”
“By helping Colombia move toward dialogue,” WOLA’s Adam Isacson writes in a May 12 New York Times column, “the Biden administration would be developing a template for engaging with counterparts throughout Latin America, where several countries battered by the virus are confronting authoritarian populism amid stark social divides.”
In a May 13 WOLA podcast, Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli explains why she’s optimistic that ongoing protests “can allow for more diverse voices to take up leadership in the country” and why she rates the US government’s response so far as “3 or 4 out of 10.”
The Duque government’s high commissioner for peace, Miguel Ceballos, announced that the government has approved or participated in 32 meetings over the past 17 months “to verify the ELN’s true will to seek peace.” Outreach, Ceballos said, has included 22 meetings with intermediaries in the Vatican Nunciature in Bogotá, 6 meetings with intermediaries in the presidential palace, often with President Duque’s participation, and 4 trips to Havana, at which Catholic Church and UN representatives spoke to ELN leaders. The OAS mission in Colombia (MAPP-OEA) also took part in some of the meetings.
A few top ELN leaders remain in Cuba after a January 2019 bombing at Colombia’s police academy in Bogotá brought an end to an earlier peace process. Though protocols for the end of those talks called for their low-profile return to Colombia, the Duque government refused to allow that and demanded their extradition. In the meantime, the ELN ex-negotiators remain in Cuba and available for exploratory talks.
The first Cuba “good offices” trip took place in February 2020, when Father Darío Echeverri, who for years has played an important go-between role in peace efforts, traveled to Havana in representation of the Vatican. Echeverri was accompanied by Carlos Ruiz Massieu, head of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia. Subsequent meetings in Cuba took place in September and November 2020 and March 2021.
At the time, the Duque government, with Ceballos playing the most vocal role, was ramping up diplomatic pressure on Cuba to extradite the ELN leaders stranded on the island. This week Pablo Beltrán, a top ELN leader and former negotiator who is among those still in Havana, told El Tiempo that Colombia’s government has been a reluctant participant in the exploratory talks, giving most credit to the Church and the international community.
Venezuelan officials say that 16 soldiers and at least 9 FARC dissident fighters have been killed since fighting broke out March 21 across the border from Arauca, Colombia, in the Venezuelan state of Apure. Sporadic fighting continues on Venezuelan soil between Venezuelan forces and a FARC dissident group, which announced this week that it is holding about eight Venezuelan soldiers captive. Though information is spotty, an NGO reports that fighting is also now occurring in Venezuela between the two FARC dissident groups active in the zone.
The panorama in Apure is confusing. In addition to the ELN guerrillas, which are very present but appear uninvolved in the current combat, are “dissidents” led by ex-guerrillas who rejected the FARC peace process. Their rank-and-file includes many new recruits with no FARC background.
The dissidents are affiliated with two national networks. The first, the 10th Front, is part of the “1st Front” structure headed by alias Gentil Duarte, a mid-level FARC leader who rejected the 2016 peace accord and never demobilized. The Gentil Duarte network is the largest FARC dissident organization in the country. The second is the “Segunda Marquetalia” (Marquetalia is the site of the 1964 army attack that led to the FARC’s origin), headed by alias Iván Márquez, who was the FARC’s chief negotiator in Havana and destined for a Senate seat. Márquez rearmed, along with several other hardline FARC members, in 2019.
Numerous analysts cited in past updates have alleged that the Venezuelan regime is targeting the 10th Front—for unclear reasons—and favoring the Segunda Marquetalia.
The Venezuelan NGO FundaRedes reported on May 8 that 10 Venezuelan soldiers had gone missing in Apure following combat with the 10th Front. On May 11 the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed that it had received a communication from the 10th Front indicating that it was holding eight Venezuelan soldiers who had been captured during fighting on April 23, and was looking for a way to hand them over. Tarazona posted this letter to his Twitter account, as well as proof-of-life video of some of the captives.
“In addition to a military defeat on April 23, the government today has [suffered] a communications defeat due to its determination to manage the situation in Apure without transparency before the families of the military and the country,” tweeted Marino Alvarado of the Venezuelan human rights group Provea. “Maduro, [Minister of Defense Gen.] Vladimir Padrino, and Adm. Remigio Ceballos [strategic operational commander of the armed forces] owe the country an explanation. A serious minister in the face of such a military and communications disaster would resign.”
FundaRedes also reported that 10th Front and Segunda Marquetalia fighters engaged in combat on May 12 in the town of Bruzual, more than 100 miles inside Venezuelan territory in northwestern Apure. Fundaredes claims that the fighting killed four and wounded several others. Combat between the 10th Front and Segunda Marquetalia has been rare in both Colombia and Venezuela, but appears to be growing more frequent.
With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.
Despite spring normally being a time of greater migration, Border Patrol’s “encounters” with undocumented migrants crept up by only 2.5 percent from March to April. The surprisingly slow growth comes after encounters increased 30 percent in February and 73 percent in March.
With 173,460 migrants encountered, April 2021 was still Border Patrol’s heaviest month in 21 years (180,050 in April 2000). That number, though, counts “encounters” and not individual “people.” There is much double-counting: “CBP has reported that about 40 percent of the adults it arrests are ‘recidivists’ or repeat offenders,” according to the Washington Post.
That is a far higher recidivism rate than in recent years: it ranged from 7 to 16 percent between 2013 and 2019. Border Patrol first started reporting this rate in 2005, when it estimated 25 percent; the highest total before now was 29 percent recidivism in 2007.
Repeat crossings are more frequent now because of the pandemic border closure measure, known as “Title 42,” that the Trump administration put in place in March 2020 and the Biden administration has continued (public health experts have strongly criticized the “Title 42” measures as having no basis in protecting public health). In the name of preventing the spread of COVID-19, Border Patrol has been quickly expelling most migrants, usually with no opportunity to ask for asylum. This means most migrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are expelled across the border into Mexico.
Border Patrol expelled 63 percent of migrants it encountered in April, the same proportion as March. In December 2020, the Trump administration’s last full month in office, expulsions stood at 85 percent.
Expulsion is a hardship for protection-seeking migrants, who normally seek to turn themselves in to CBP or Border Patrol. For migrants who wish to avoid being apprehended, though, expulsion has made the process easier: if they are caught, they get taken back across the border within hours, usually without even seeing the inside of a Border Patrol station, and in many cases try to cross again.
Single adult migrants are more likely than children or families to attempt to avoid apprehension, and thus to try crossing again after being expelled. Border Patrol’s encounters with single adults increased by 12 percent from March to April, to 108,301. Trying to avoid apprehension often means taking dangerous routes, such as through remote desert areas or by sea, and it appears that more migrants are dying on U.S. soil or in U.S. waters, the Wall Street Journal reported this week.
Encounters with unaccompanied children and members of family units, though, plummeted 10 percent—a result that almost nobody foresaw in March, when children and families increased by 102 percent and 177 percent, respectively.
Border Patrol encountered 48,226 family members, down 5,000 from March. The sharpest one-month decrease was in families from Guatemala (-29 percent) and Honduras (-22 percent), while families from “other countries”—neither Mexico nor Central America’s “Northern Triangle” region—jumped by 34 percent, to 14,448.
This appears to be an outcome of the Title 42 expulsions into Mexico. 48 percent of family members from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras were expelled, similar to 47 percent in March (we reported a smaller percentage a month ago, but CBP radically revised its family expulsion data). With a roughly 50-50 chance of being expelled or being allowed to petition for asylum or protection inside the United States, Central American families face a confusing set of outcomes that smugglers are exploiting, reports Lomi Kriel at ProPublica / Texas Tribune. By contrast, Border Patrol expelled just 5 percent of family members from “other countries”—often places like Cuba or Venezuela where sending expulsion flights is not currently possible.
As noted in past updates, numbers of unaccompanied children continue to drop, even though the Biden administration is not expelling non-Mexican children who arrive. Border Patrol encountered an average of 268 non-Mexican children per day between May 9-12. This is a sharp drop from the 387 average of May 2-6, and the high 400s logged in late March and the first three weeks of April.
The agency encountered 2,268 Mexican children in April, almost identical to March (2,277). While almost none were expelled under Title 42, most were quickly repatriated back to Mexico, as was the norm before the pandemic, because the 2008 law requiring that unaccompanied children go into the asylum system only applies to kids from non-contiguous countries.
Only a daily average of 493 children were being processed in Border Patrol facilities during May 9-12, down from well over 5,000 in late March and early April. Nearly all were handed over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s (ORR) network of shelters within about 24 hours. The population of unaccompanied children in ORR shelters has also dropped to 20,397, the fewest since April 19 and down from an April 29 high of 22,557.
These shelters, which include convention centers, tent facilities, and a military base, face serious challenges of crowding, living conditions, and logistics, the New York Times reported, sharing an internal “senior leader brief” showing a thorough level of data collection. This week, the Dallas Morning News found that ORR had been keeping unaccompanied children for days at a time on buses parked outside a Dallas convention center that it is using as an emergency shelter. Politico reported that the White House has been leaning hard on Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, whose department oversees ORR, to speed the pace at which the agency releases children to relatives or sponsors in the United States.
Late March predictions that ORR would need bed space for 34,000 or more children are now looking too pessimistic. With the drop in child and family migration has come a notable drop in press coverage of events at the border.
Family expulsions have generated a quiet crisis of family separation in Mexican border cities, as expelled parents, aware that unaccompanied children don’t get expelled, make the painful decision to send their children back into the United States alone. “Between January 20 and April 5, Border Patrol agents came across at least 2,121 unaccompanied migrant children who had been previously expelled,” CBS News reported. That is 24 family separations per day—one per hour.
In April CBP expelled people 111,714 times under the Title 42 pandemic authority. On May 13 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that he did not have a timetable for lifting Title 42. Recent weeks, though, have seen some modest changes to the policy’s application to asylum seekers.
On May 12 CBS News got confirmation from CBP that the agency, citing “operational needs,” has stopped flying families from south Texas, where the bordering Mexican state of Tamaulipas has been limiting expulsions of families with small children, to other parts of the border where expulsions are easier. Since March 8, near-daily planeloads of people had been taking Central American families from McAllen, Texas to El Paso, Texas and San Diego, California. Witness at the Border, which monitors ICE flights, detected 60 of these “lateral” flights in April and 108 between March 8 and April 30, enough to expel about 10,000 people.
Once in El Paso and San Diego, DHS personnel were taking families to the borderline and leaving them in Mexico, often without telling them where they were or what was happening to them. Human Rights First discussed some of the families’ treatment at the hands of Border Patrol and other DHS personnel in a May 13 memo. U.S. media outlets have reported on tearful, disoriented families who had just been flown thousands of miles to be expelled.
The lateral expulsion flights have now stopped, although DHS is still busing some families from south Texas’s Rio Grande Valley region about four hours west to Laredo, in order to expel them into the organized crime-dominated border town of Nuevo Laredo. At a May 13 Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) accused DHS Secretary Mayorkas of canceling the expulsion flights in response to “left-wing groups.”
Another tiny erosion into Title 42 is a small but growing number of humanitarian exceptions for some of the most vulnerable expelled migrants who wish to seek asylum in the United States. “The latest plan is kicking off on a pilot basis,” a source told CNN, “adding that families will be put in immigration proceedings” in the United States. In recent weeks, about 35 vulnerable families a day have been exempted from expulsions, at the recommendation of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is the plaintiff in a lawsuit against DHS seeking to overturn Title 42. It is not clear to what extent that number may expand. On May 13 the ACLU agreed to the latest in a series of delays to that lawsuit; the next deadline is May 25.
Seven months into fiscal year 2021, CBP’s reporting on drugs detected at the U.S.-Mexico border points to big increases in fentanyl and cocaine seizures, a big drop in cannabis seizures, and little change in heroin and methamphetamine seizures. As in past years, nearly all drugs are seized by CBP agents at ports of entry, with the exception of marijuana:
I recorded a very good conversation with my colleague Gimena Sánchez, who I don’t think has slept since Colombia’s protests—and the government’s crackdown—began on April 28. She does a masterful job explaining what’s going on. Here’s the text of the podcast landing page at wola.org.
Protests that began April 28 in Colombia are maintaining momentum and a broad base of support, despite a heavy-handed government response. Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, WOLA’s Director for the Andes, sees a movement coalescing—and a need for a more decisive U.S. approach.
This conversation, recorded on May 13, explains the different factors contributing to the crisis at the country enters its third week of protests and the number of dead or missing—almost entirely protestors—continues to increase. It also touches on the larger context of protests that were already taking place in Colombia’s more rural/indigenous area, paramilitary responses to the protestors, and contextualizes indigenous frustration in Colombia. The discussion ends with the prospect for change in Colombia, and how the Biden administration has responded so far.
Listen to WOLA’s Latin America Today podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The main feed is here.
It’s a pretty packed day. (How to contact me)
We’re recording a podcast on Colombia this morning, which I’d like to post a transcription and a translation of, so it will take most of the morning. Then there’s a meeting of a coalition of border groups, a conversation with a House committee staffer, and another with a few colleagues in Colombia. And I want to write up a new weekly border update, which will require me to finish processing the April numbers CBP released late Tuesday.
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