(Even more here)

October 29, 2020

Western Hemisphere Regional

• “Asylum Denial Rates Continue to Climb” (TRAC Immigration, October 29, 2020).

The outcome for asylum seekers continued to depend on the identity of the im­mi­gration judge assigned to hear the case

Argentina

• “Argentina Dirty War: Torture and Baby Theft Trial Under Way” (BBC (UK), October 29, 2020).

Among those charged is Miguel Etchecolatz, 91, who headed police investigations in Buenos Aires

Brazil

• Paulo Trevisani, Juan Forero, “Brazil Wanted to Harvest the Amazon Responsibly. Illicit Loggers Axed the Plan.” (The Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2020).

Amata’s pullout in April casts doubt on Brazil’s ability or willingness to find sustainable ways to exploit the Amazon without irreparable damage

Colombia

• “Organizaciones Sociales Piden a la Jep Que las Versiones de los Militares Sean Publicas” (El Espectador (Colombia), October 29, 2020).

Según los representantes de víctimas, los miembros de la Fuerza Pública no han cumplido con sus aportes extraordinarios de verdad

• Juan Camilo Jaramillo, “Eln Likely to Quickly Move Past Uriel’s Death in Colombia” (InsightCrime, October 29, 2020).

Though highly visible, Vanegas Londoño served more as a local leader than a national one

• “Senador y Lider Indigena Feliciano Valencia Denuncia Que Le Hicieron un Atentado” (El Espectador (Colombia), October 29, 2020).

A través de redes sociales, el senador por el partido MAIS Feliciano Valencia reportó que fue víctima de un atentado en una vía de Toribío

• Jerson Ortiz, “En Putumayo No Golpea Tanto el Virus del Covid, Como el de los Armados” (La Silla Vacia (Colombia), October 29, 2020).

Al departamento lo está golpeando la disputa territorial entre las bandas, y la crisis de gobernabilidad por las acusaciones contra su gobernador y de uno de sus dos congresistas

• “¿la Relacion de Trump y America Latina se Podria Arreglar Con Biden?” (El Espectador (Colombia), October 29, 2020).

Lo que deja el actual presidente, según activistas y académicos consultados por la Oficina de Washington para América Latina (WOLA), es un vínculo lleno de desconfianza por parte de algunos gobiernos latinoamericanos

• Jack Guy, Stefano Pozzebon, “Colombia’s Peace Deal Could Hang on the Us Election” (CNN, October 29, 2020).

Experts believe a Biden administration would put more pressure on Duque to protect rights defenders

• Christopher Woody, “How the Deployment of the Army’s Brand-New Training Unit Became a Headache for One of the Us’s Closest Allies” (Business Insider, October 29, 2020).

The otherwise normal deployment sparked political backlash in Colombia, and in the months since, the Army has been less vocal about the new unit’s whereabouts

Colombia, Mexico

• Adyr Corral, “Incautan Media Tonelada de Cocaina y Mas de 4 Mil Botellas de Tequila al Clan del Golfo, Aliados del Cartel de Sinaloa” (Milenio (Mexico), October 29, 2020).

La relación del Cártel de Sinaloa y el Clan del Golfo tiene como principal objetivo, la financiación y articulación

Cuba

• Monique O. Madan, “An Asylum Seeker Is Freed, Then Rearrested, as Ice Makes Cubans Languish in Detention” (The Miami Herald, October 29, 2020).

Several Cuban nationals detained at the Stewart Detention Center in Georgia say they are being held behind bars longer than they have to be

El Salvador

• Naomi Roht-Arriaza, “On el Salvador’s 1981 el Mozote Massacre, President Bukele Sides With Impunity” (University of California Hastings Law, Just Security, October 29, 2020).

Both the survivors and the defendants are dying, and more delay raises the risk that “biological impunity” will prevail

• Nelson Rauda Zablah, “Archivos de el Mozote Que Bukele “Desclasifico” Son Copias de Informes Enviados por Sanchez Ceren” (El Faro (El Salvador), October 29, 2020).

El Gobierno Bukele no ha desclasificado información nueva sobre la masacre de El Mozote. Por el contrario, los cartapacios que “desclasificó” el 24 de septiembre en cadena nacional contienen, en su mayoría, copias de informes que el gobierno de Sánchez Cerén remitió

Guatemala

• “Menendez, Castro, Torres Lead Bicameral Call for Accountability Following Trump Administration’s Reckless Immigration Operation in Guatemala” (Office of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey), U.S. Senate, October 29, 2020).

Led more than 40 of their Democratic Senate and House colleagues in demanding that the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) take immediate action

• Daniel Gonzalez, “‘They Were Sending the Virus’: Guatemala Reels After U.S. Deports Hundreds of Deportees With Covid-19” (The Arizona Republic, October 29, 2020).

Guatemalan data obtained by The Arizona Republic shows that the U.S. deported nearly 6,000 people during a six-month period from March to September, including 331 who tested positive for COVD-19 after arriving

• Sandra Cuffe, “Genocide Survivors Say Guatemalan Government Is Blocking Their Fight for Justice” (VICE, October 29, 2020).

The move is seen by victims as a retreat by the government on promises it made as part of peace accords that ended the civil war

Mexico

• “Manifiesta Mexico a Eu su Descontento por Caso Cienfuegos: Ebrard” (Riodoce (Sinaloa Mexico), October 29, 2020).

El presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador defendió la labor del ejército y señaló que en caso de que resultara culpable el general Cienfuegos, es un hecho aislado y “tenemos que cuidar la institución”

• Arturo Angel, Francisco Sandoval, “Meten a Carcel Militar a Elementos de la Guardia Nacional Detenidos por la Muerte de Mujer en Chihuahua” (Animal Politico (Mexico), October 29, 2020).

Por tratarse de integrantes de la Sedena comisionados a la Guardia Nacional, los seis inculpados por la muerte de una mujer en Chihuahua fueron trasladados a una cárcel militar en Mazatlán

• Daina Beth Solomon, Raul Cortes, “Mexico Bristles at U.S. for Role in Ex-Army Chief’s Arrest” (Reuters, Reuters, October 29, 2020).

Mexico’s government has expressed “profound discontent” to U.S. officials for not informing their Mexican counterparts of plans to arrest former defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos

U.S.-Mexico Border

• Priscilla Alvarez, “Texas Landowners Facing Coronavirus Pandemic and Land Seizures for Border Wall” (CNN, October 29, 2020).

“People right now are having to choose between their health and their homes”

• Rafael Carranza, “2020 on Track to Be Among Deadliest for Migrants at the Arizona-Mexico Border” (The Arizona Republic, October 29, 2020).

“2020 UBC (undocumented border crosser) recoveries are projected to top 200 by the end of the year, placing 2020 within the top three highest years over the 21 years we have been tracking this death category”

• Elliot Spagat, “Migrants Quickly Expelled by Trump Try Repeatedly to Cross” (Associated Press, Associated Press, October 29, 2020).

The suspension of asylum combined with the introduction of “express deportations,” as migrants call them, accelerated a shift in who is crossing the border illegally

• “Judiciary Committee Releases Report on Trump Administration Family Separation Policy” (U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, October 29, 2020).

Without doing anything to address the tracking systems employed by federal agencies, the Administration chose to expand the policy nationwide in May 2018

• Hamed Aleaziz, “Border Officials Turned Away Unaccompanied Immigrant Children More Than 13,000 Times Under Trump’s Pandemic Policy” (BuzzFeed, October 29, 2020).

“This is an enormous number of children who are being summarily sent back without any due process, potentially to serious or fatal danger”

• Kate Morrissey, “New Lawsuit to Challenge Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy” (The San Diego Union-Tribune, October 29, 2020).

The complaint argues that the program is designed to ensure that as many asylum seekers as possible are deported rather than protected

• Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “Dhs Chief Chad Wolf Claims Some Deported Parents “Have Chosen to Separate Their Children From Themselves”” (CBS News, October 29, 2020).

Wolf was asked to respond to a recent status report by the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that said 545 parents remained “unreachable”

• Michelle Wiley, “Us Treatment of Migrant Children Falls Under un Definition of ‘Torture,’ Doctors Say” (KQED News, October 29, 2020).

A new paper, published on the website of the medical journal “Pediatrics” on Tuesday, calls the federal government’s handling of migrant children at the border “consistent with torture”

• Julia Ainsley, Jacob Soboroff, “Agency That Cares for Migrant Kids Was Not Told Trump Admin Was Separating Families, Says Report” (NBC News, October 29, 2020).

In a December 2017 email cited by the report, then-Acting CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told an HHS official who had asked about the surge, “You should have seen a change in the past 10 days or so”

Venezuela

• Yazmin Antia, “Oficialismo Tiene 16 Candidatos Militares para Ser Diputados de la An” (El Universal (Venezuela), October 29, 2020).

Al menos redoblar el número de escaños provenientes de las filas militares aspira el Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) al postular para los próximos comicios legislativos a 16 personas vinculadas a las Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana

• Fabiola Sanchez , Scott Smith, “Venezuelan President: Key Oil Refinery Attacked; 2 Detained” (Associated Press, The Washington Post, October 29, 2020).

Maduro gave few details of the alleged attack Tuesday that he said toppled a large tower at the Amuay Refinery on Venezuela’s northern Caribbean coast

• Vivian Sequera, Deisy Buitrago, “Venezuela Prosecutor Arrests Opposition Coordinator” (Reuters, Reuters, October 29, 2020).

Opposition activist Roland Carreno had been arrested, hours after opposition leader Juan Guaido denounced what he called the “forced disappearance” of the Popular Will party’s coordinator

• “New Report Documents How U.S. Sanctions Have Directly Aggravated Venezuela’s Economic Crisis” (Washington Office on Latin America, October 29, 2020).

U.S. policymakers need to rethink U.S. sanctions, and to limit their impact on Venezuela’s worsening humanitarian emergency

• Rafael Uzcategui, “Chavistas Trained at the “School of the Americas”” (OpenDemocracy (UK), October 29, 2020).

3,590 Venezuelans had completed their training at the institute until then. Two of them currently hold senior positions in the Government of Nicolás Maduro. And their names consistently appear in the recent report by the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission

• Alvaro Pulido, “Adquisicion de Misiles Iranies Esta Ligado a un Tema Propagandistico” (Efecto Cocuyo (Venezuela), October 29, 2020).

Rocío San Miguel, directora de la organización Control Ciudadano, destacó que estas declaraciones están ligadas más al tema propagandístico que a una opción real de compra de material bélico en Venezuela