Dolores Ochoa photo at Associated Press. Caption: “Soldiers deliver food to a woman who cannot leave her house because of the government’s request that people don’t leave their homes to prevent the coronavirus from spreading throughout the city in Zambiza, near Quito, Ecuador, Thursday, April 2, 2020. The government has declared a ‘health emergency,’ restricting movement to only those who provide basic services, enacting a curfew, and closing schools.”

(Even more here)

April 3, 2020

Western Hemisphere Regional

Their lives are at risk even though many of them have committed no crime and if they have, it was that they crossed the border without authorization

Brazil

Fewer law enforcement officials going into the field open door for land invasions, indigenous communities and NGOs warn

Even top military officers in the government – who until now have neither publicly criticized nor defended Bolsonaro – sprang to Mandetta’s defense

Bolsonaro doesn’t seem likely to reform his delinquent behavior. “I’m sorry, some people will die. They will die—that’s life,” he said, in an interview on Friday

Colombia

If this novel and innovative institution can achieve a fair and effective form of transitional justice that encompasses truth, justice, reparations, and guarantees of non-recurrence, the country could make a significant shift into a new phase of peacebuilding and violence-reduction

Según inteligencia oficial, el Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) actualmente está presente en 115 municipios del país

El Instituto de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Paz (Indepaz) reportó que en lo corrido de este año han sido asesinados 71 líderes sociales o defensores de derechos humanos

Ecuador

Dead bodies kept in homes or dumped on roadsides as authorities and hospitals are overwhelmed by Covid-19 in Andean nation’s second city

Mexico

Al menos dos centenares de organizaciones de la sociedad civil de México, Estados Unidos, Guatemala, El Salvador y Honduras, así como universidades y activistas, demandaron la destitución del comisionado del Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM), Francisco Garduño Yáñez

El Presidente está negociando con el narcotráfico que le permitan gobernar sin violencia. Aunque no lo dice con palabras, sus actos hablan y son más

Central America Regional, Mexico

“ICE’s expectation is that each country will continue to meet its international obligation to accept its own nationals”

U.S.-Mexico Border

As a public health professional working to prevent illness in our U.S.-Mexico border communities, I am shocked that the non-essential construction of Trump’s border wall continues despite national, state and local emergency declarations

The use of checkpoints, like the one in Temecula, California that stands between farmworkers and the nearest hospital, sends the wrong message at a time like this

The guidance provided to Border Patrol agents makes clear that asylum-seekers are being turned away unless they can persuade both a Border Patrol agent — as well as a higher-ranking Border Patrol official — that they will be tortured if sent home