Adam Isacson

Defense, security, borders, migration, and human rights in Latin America and the United States. May not reflect my employer’s consensus view.

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May 15, 2024 — 0

Video of Today’s Panel on Migration in Medellín

Video of my presentation (in Spanish), delivered in Colombia, about the current moment of migration and U.S. policy. Link to a PDF of the slides, and some photos from the day in Medellín.

Here’s today’s panel at Medellín, Colombia’s Universidad de Antioquia, where I presented with Carolina Moreno of Bogotá’s Universidad de los Andes. (It’s in Spanish, which means that viewers have to puzzle through my Spanish. I’m not much more articulate in English, honestly.)

Until I ran out of time, I spoke about current migration trends, what’s happening with U.S. border and migration policy, and the poor choices that countries have for managing in-transit migration.

You can download a PDF file of the slides I used at bit.ly/2024-adam-unal-med.

My deepest thanks to professors Lirio Gutiérrez and Elena Butti of the Universidad Nacional Sede Antioquia for leading the great team of faculty and students who have organized this two-day conference. I’ve learned a lot from the panels.

And there’s another in-person day to go. I’m moderating a panel at 9:00AM tomorrow local time (10:00 on the U.S. east coast) and the discussions of migration go on until 4:00PM.

So it’s time to get some rest. But first, a few snapshots.

It has been raining a lot, and the Medellín River is quite high.

Courtyard at the Universidad de Antioquia.

State universities in Colombia are nearly always coated with leftist graffiti, but the U de A is especially exuberant.
March 8, 2024 — 0

Weekly Border Update Promo Video

A 1-minute promo video to accompany this week's WOLA U.S.-Mexico Border Update.

In this week’s WOLA Border Update:

  • The spring migration increase is underway
  • Boats stop, then resume, at the entrance to the Darién Gap
  • Drug seizure data through January shows drop in fentanyl
March 3, 2024 — 0

“Border and Migration 101”: A Screencast Recorded in March 2024

This 80-minute explainer video offers an in-depth, graphical look at what’s happening at the U.S.-Mexico border right now.

I enjoy giving “101-level” explanatory presentations with lots of graphics. I especially enjoy it when the time limit is not too tight.

I gave a talk about the border and migration to an audience last week and will do so again this week. In between, I recorded this screencast for practice, and I’m happy to share it.

This is an in-depth, graphical overview of what’s happening at the U.S.-Mexico border right now. Questions addressed include:

  • What is new and different about the people who are coming to the border today?
  • What is “asylum?”
  • What are people fleeing?
  • What countries are they coming from?
  • What role did U.S. policy historically play in the conditions they’re fleeing?
  • What is the trip to the U.S. border like? What threats to people face?
  • What happens when they get to the border? How does processing, case management, and adjudication work (or fail to work)?
  • What has the U.S. government done to try to “push the migration numbers down?”
  • What would a better policy look like?

Download the graphics shown here as a single PDF at bit.ly/border-101-march-2024.

For even more of WOLA’s border and migration work, see:

February 13, 2024 — 0

Rocío San Miguel, now a political prisoner, discusses politicization of Venezuela’s military in 2010

Video of a 2010 conversation excerpt with Venezuelan activist and civil-military relations expert Rocío San Miguel, who was just arrested in Caracas.

I don’t get to work on Venezuela very often, but I did get to record a conversation in 2010 with activist and civil-military relations expert Rocío San Miguel. Here’s an excerpt where we discussed the military’s politicization.

Rocío was arrested last Friday in Caracas. Authorities are accusing her of terrorism and treason, which is as horrifying as it is absurd.

February 9, 2024 — 0

Weekly Border Update Promo Video

A 43-second promo video to accompany this week's WOLA U.S.-Mexico Border Update.

I haven’t done one of these since October.

It’s a 43-second video, but it takes nearly two and a half hours to script, make graphics, film, edit, add subtitles, and export 16:9 and 9:16 versions.

I’m still not convinced these are the best use of my time, but as with the infographics and the podcasts, I think it’s important to experiment with formats other than text. (Even though my 1980s-90s liberal arts education barely equips me for it.)

February 4, 2024 — 0

At VOA’s Foro Interamericano: El Salvador define su futuro político

Video of a panel discussion, recorded Friday, on Voice of America. I joined Salvadoran analyst Napoleón Campos to talk about the implications of authoritarian-trending leader Nayib Bukele's likely blowout re-election victory in today's election in El Salvador.

Here (en español) is a panel discussion, recorded Friday, on Voice of America. I joined Salvadoran analyst Napoleón Campos to talk about the implications of authoritarian-trending leader Nayib Bukele’s likely blowout re-election victory in today’s election in El Salvador.

January 20, 2024 — 0

Video: Migration Dynamics: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities in the Northern Triangle

Video: With Elizabeth Oglesby of the University of Arizona and Diego de Sola of Glasswing International, we talked about the causes of migration away from Central America, and the good and bad of U.S. policies, past and present.
(Not sure why I’m making that facial expression.)

Many thanks to New York-based Network 20/20, an organization “that bridges the gap between the private sector and foreign policy worlds,” for inviting me to participate in a virtual panel last Thursday. With Elizabeth Oglesby of the University of Arizona and Diego de Sola of Glasswing International, we talked about the causes of migration away from Central America, and the good and bad of U.S. policies, past and present.

November 13, 2023 — 0

Video: “Migrant Justice in Times of Militarized Borders”

This was a great panel on November 7, with speakers in four countries (the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, and Colombia). We talked about challenges for dignified migration at a time of hardening borders and more military and police involvement in migration control throughout the region.

Many thanks to Hispanics in Philanthropy and Open Society Foundations for organizing it and inviting me to participate.

October 12, 2023 — 0

At WOLA: Migration Can’t and Shouldn’t Be Blocked. But it Can be Managed.

Here’s an 1,100-word statement recalling and highlighting some of the basic principles underlying our border and migration work. Backed up with lots of numbers and data, of course.

The main points:

  1. Most migrants arriving in the United States are exercising their right to seek asylum
  2. The United States needs to invest in managing, in a humane and timely manner, migrants and asylum seekers—NOT in more border security
  3. Legislative proposals from “border hawks,” like the “Secure the Border Act” (H.R2), would endanger thousands of lives

Read it here. It comes with an embedded video:

October 6, 2023 — 0

Video for This Week’s Border Update

I think I’m getting better at making these? Obtaining a cheap teleprompter helped.

In this week’s WOLA U.S.-Mexico Border Update:

  • Two breaking items: new border wall and Venezuela deportations
  • Border Patrol apprehended about 210,000 migrants in September
  • Proposals call for increasing deportations from Mexico and Panama
  • Mexico updates
  • Darién Gap updates
September 29, 2023 — 0

Video: A lot of migration at the border isn’t “illegal.”

We hear a lot that people at the U.S.-Mexico border are being allowed into the United States “illegally.” Well, no.

For decades, U.S. law has stated that if you fear for your life or freedom if returned to your country, you are entitled to due process. Asylum seekers are doing something legal. And many of them qualify.

Here’s a two-minute explanation:

September 27, 2023 — 0

“To see my son growing up, and saying his first words, and him not being here…”

You hear a lot about the popularity of El Salvador’s authoritarian-trending president, Nayib Bukele, who has overseen an anti-gang “state of exception” that has jailed more than 1 percent of the country’s population since March 2022.

The result has been a sharp drop in violent crime that has people throughout the Americas saying “we need a Bukele here.” But there’s a dark side that’s evident to all who care enough not to look away.

One who’s not looking away is filmmaker Amada Torruella, whose short film “La Isla” appears today on the website of the New Yorker. It’s about the family of a man who authorities took away during a sweep early in the state of emergency, even though the part of coastal El Salvador where he lives does not have a significant gang presence.

The New Yorker’s Jonathan Blitzer narrates:

The subjects of Torruella’s film are all female—the wives, mothers, and sisters of the men who have been arrested and sent to prison. “We had just come back from doing some shopping,” one of them says, “when suddenly an officer from the Armed Forces approached him.” She sits on a tidy bed in a small house, sifting through legal papers; her partner has been gone eighteen days. “It’s a lie,” she says, of the government’s accusation. Five months later, she’s still not heard anything from him.

Even though El Salvador’s homicide rate is now purported to be nearly as low as Denmark’s, there is no end in sight to the “state of exception” limiting basic rights, which has been renewed 18 times by Bukele’s legislative supermajority. As Bukele heads for re-election next year even though the country’s laws forbid it, he at least needs to end the pain of thousands of innocents caught up in his sweeps.

September 25, 2023 — 0

“Unboxing”: Migración en la Era de Biden

Here (en español) is an episode of DemocraciaAbierta’s #Unboxing program, in which host Sandra Borda (of Colombia’s Universidad de los Andes) and I discuss the Biden administration’s post-Title 42 changes to immigration policy. We recorded this in late May, so it’s not razor-sharp current, but we do go into some detail that you don’t often get in a video interview.

September 15, 2023 — 0

Promo Video for Today’s WOLA Mexico Podcast

As I noted earlier today, I recorded a great podcast yesterday with the director of WOLA’s Mexico program, Stephanie Brewer. It’s about a report they published last week about the growing power of Mexico’s armed forces, and how hard it is to hold them accountable for human rights abuse even as they confront, and arrest, thousands of people per year while carrying out policing missions.

Here’s WOLA’s podcast landing page. And here’s the podcast, embedded:

September 5, 2023 — 0

Video for September 1, 2023 WOLA Border Update

This makes four weeks in a row that I’ve tried using my new office space at “renovated WOLA” to make quick little mobile-friendly promo videos for things we’ve published. This is the first one with the teleprompter setup that I’ve jury-rigged: a fast overview of the latest Weekly Border Update.

These are “experimenting in public,” figuring out the production, the hardware, and the software as I go. They’ve performed modestly on Twitter and invisibly on Mastodon, but reasonably well on TikTok (where they reliably attract obnoxious far-right commenters) and on Instagram.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.