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September 8, 2021
Brazil
- Oliver Stuenkel, “Stalemate: The Main Outcome of Bolsonaro’s Day of Protest” (Americas Quarterly, September 8, 2021).
The pro-Bolsonaro protests seem to take Brazil one step closer to a “January 6” scenario, a crisis similar to the insurrection and riots at the US Capitol
- Debora Alvares, David Biller, “At Brazil Rallies, Bolsonaro Deepens Rift With Supreme Court” (Associated Press, September 8, 2021).
At least three times — once soon after Bolsonaro’s second speech of the day — groups of demonstrators in Brasilia tried to get past police barriers, but officers repelled them with pepper spray
Colombia
- “Exploring Illegal Mining in Colombia’s Amazon” (InsightCrime, September 8, 2021).
Gold is not only more valuable than cocaine but easier to launder, with a fraction of the risk involved in trafficking drugs
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras
- David C Adams, “Us Forging Ahead on Anti-Corruption Fight in Central America, but Facing Obstacles” (Univision, September 8, 2021).
Teams of prosecutors are being embedded in the U.S. embassies in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras tasked with providing backup to local law enforcement efforts. They are also being armed with a new authority to allow the more rapid revoking of visas, within days, of suspected criminals
Guatemala, Mexico
- Alberto Pradilla, ““Queriamos Pedir Asilo Pero No Nos Dejaron Hablar”: Asi Operan los Vuelos de Eu para Expulsar Centroamericanos por Chiapas” (Animal Politico (Mexico), September 8, 2021).
En Frontera Talismán, Chiapas, los expulsados son abandonados sin apoyo de ninguna institución
September 7, 2021
Colombia
- “Jep Llama a Version Voluntaria a Tres Generales, Seis Coroneles y un Mayor de la Ix Brigada del Ejercito, Dentro del Subcaso Huila de “Falsos Positivos”” (Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (Colombia), September 7, 2021).
Los generales (r) Jaime Alfonso Lasprilla Villamizar, Miguel Ernesto Pérez Guarnizo y William Fernando Pérez Laiseca, así como los otros siete oficiales, son comparecientes forzosos
El Salvador
- Kate Linthicum, “As el Salvador Adopts Bitcoin, Its Young President Is Dismantling Democracy” (The Los Angeles Times, September 7, 2021).
The rollout of cryptocurrency has been upstaged by a more urgent concern: a series of withering attacks by Bukele and his ruling party on El Salvador’s three-decade-old democracy
Panama
- Kejal Vyas, “Rapes of U.S.-Bound Migrants Make a Treacherous Route Even More Dangerous” (The Wall Street Journal, September 7, 2021).
Doctors Without Borders, which provides medical care to migrants in the hamlet of Bajo Chiquito, on the northern edge of the Darién, says it has documented 180 cases of rape since starting operations here in May
U.S.-Mexico Border
- Sister Norma Pimentel, “What Biden Can Do for Migrants Stuck in Mexico, Despite Mpp” (The Washington Post, September 7, 2021).
I rejoiced when you declared an end to this immoral policy on your first days in office, and despaired when the Supreme Court required your administration to implement it once again
- Rene Kladzyk, “Vulnerable Migrants Will No Longer Be Exempt From Rapid Expulsion at the Border” (El Paso Matters, September 7, 2021).
This process of identifying vulnerable asylum-seekers, carried out by a consortium of nongovernmental organizations, has come to an end as of Aug. 31
September 6, 2021
Colombia
- Juan Gabriel Vasquez, “La Autoridad de la Comision de la Verdad” (El Pais (Spain), September 6, 2021).
¿Por qué se decidió convertir los Acuerdos de paz en una razón de conflicto?
El Salvador
- “Sweeping Changes Help Bukele Consolidate Power” (El Salvador Perspectives, September 6, 2021).
This week may go down in Salvadoran history as the week in which Nayib Bukele completed his consolidation of one man / one party rule in El Salvador
Nicaragua
- Yubelka Mendoza, Anatoly Kurmanaev, Alfonso Flores Bermudez, “‘Everyone Is on the List’: Fear Grips Nicaragua as It Veers to Dictatorship” (The New York Times, September 6, 2021).
Since June, the police have jailed or put under house arrest seven candidates for November’s presidential election and dozens of political activists and civil society leaders, leaving Mr. Ortega running on a ballot devoid of any credible challenger and turning Nicaragua into a police state
U.S.-Mexico Border
- Melissa del Bosque, “Secretive Cbp Counterterrorism Teams Interrogated 180,000 U.S. Citizens Over Two-Year Period” (The Intercept, September 6, 2021).
Unlike other law enforcement or intelligence agencies, CBP has been given the authority by Congress to conduct warrantless searches, which it uses to collect enormous amounts of personal information, often from U.S. citizens
- Molly Hennessy-Fiske, “Biden Vowed to Close a Border Migrant Camp, Then a Worse One Emerged Under His Watch” (The Los Angeles Times, September 6, 2021).
Soon after the Matamoros camp was bulldozed in March, a new camp formed about 55 miles west across from the border bridge to the more dangerous, Gulf crime cartel stronghold of Reynosa