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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WOLA

Title 42 Must End. Here are Five Reasons Why

Just posted at wola.org, drafted by WOLA’s communications team with much input and edits from Maureen Meyer and me. As Title 42’s end date nears a Supreme Court showdown, here in 1,280 words are 5 reasons why it should terminate, as soon as possible.

Title 42 Must End. Here are Five Reasons Why (in <1,300 words):

  1. It’s illegal
  2. It wasn’t designed to protect public health
  3. It creates a discriminatory system
  4. It puts people in need of protection in further danger
  5. It undermines the U.S. ability to promote a protection-centered response to regional migration

Read the whole thing here.

WOLA Podcast: Unprotected at the U.S.-Mexico Border

For the latest episode of WOLA’s far-too-infrequent podcast, three colleagues and I talked for nearly an hour about what we saw and heard during a week along the U.S.-Mexico border in mid-November. We’re definitely still processing it.

Here’s the text from WOLA’s website:

During a week in mid-November, WOLA staff visited both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, from El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, west through Tucson and Nogales, and on to Yuma and San Luis Río Colorado. We spoke to shelter personnel, advocates, experts, service providers, and many migrants.

The migrants we met were stranded in Mexican border cities, fleeing violence and state failure but unable to ask for protection in the United States, a right normally enshrined in U.S. law, due to ongoing Trump and Biden administration policies.

Many were from Venezuela, whose citizens the United States began expelling into Mexico, under the 33-month-old Title 42 pandemic authority, in mid-October. Many were from Central America and Mexico. Some were living in overwhelmed shelters, many others were living in a tent encampment where nighttime temperatures dropped to freezing.

In this episode, WOLA staff talk about what we saw and heard on this trip at a time when the largest obstacle to seeking asylum in the United States may be about to fall. A federal judge struck down Title 42 on November 15, while we were traveling. It could finally be lifted, and the right to seek asylum at least somewhat restored, by December 21. We discuss what may come next, and what new maneuvers the Biden administration is contemplating to deter migrants from seeking asylum after Title 42 ends.

Four WOLA staff members who visited the border in November participate in this episode:

Download the podcast .mp3 file 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.

Next Tuesday: Abuse, Accountability, and Organizational Culture at U.S. Border Law Enforcement Agencies

I don’t host events very often, and I’ve wanted to do this one for a while.

There’s a few colleagues in Washington and at the U.S.-Mexico border whose work I really admire: people who take testimonies from migrants about abuse they say they suffered at the hands of U.S. border law enforcement agencies (CBP and Border Patrol), and people who doggedly follow the DHS complaints process and otherwise seek reforms to hold abusers accountable. It’s hard work.

I’m delighted that four of these colleagues accepted my invitation to talk about their work, what they’re finding, what happens when you try to achieve justice or redress after an abuse occurs, and how to bring about institutional and cultural change.

We’ll be talking at 1:00pm Eastern next Tuesday in this virtual event. I’ll share the video on YouTube (and embedded here) afterward. Please join, and share—here’s the WOLA event announcement.

Colombia Elections: ‘The Next President is Either Going to Effectively Kill the Peace Accord or Save it’

Here’s highlights of a discussion Gimena Sánchez and I had with Héctor Silva at WOLA the other day.

The first round of the Presidential elections in Colombia was marked by the real possibility of a triumph of the political left, a stalemate in the peace process, the proliferation of armed groups, and growing violence.

Gustavo Petro, former senator and former mayor of Bogota, obtained 40 percent of the votes and Rodolfo Hernández, an emerging candidate, came in second with 28 percent. One of the big questions ahead of the second round on June 19 is whether Hernández will be able to capitalize on the 55 percent of voters who did not choose Petro.

In this interview, Gimena Sánchez, Director for the Andes at WOLA and Adam Isacson, Director for Defense Oversight at WOLA, discuss the main challenges the new president will face, the risks of electoral violence, and the implications of Colombia’s new political map for the bilateral relationship with the United States.

Read in English at wola.org | Leer en español en wola.org

New brief: Capacity, Security, and Accountability at the U.S.-Mexico Border’s Western Edge

During the first week of May 2022 in San Diego and Tijuana, WOLA staff held 16 meetings and interviews with advocates, shelters, officials, and experts working on border and migration. We talked about the 300,000+ migrants in transit each year, post-Title 42 challenges, and the U.S. border law enforcement accountability issues covered on this site. On May 18, we published notes about what we learned.

We found:

  • In Tijuana, Mexico’s largest border city, the U.S.-Mexico border’s largest and best-established system of humanitarian shelters is holding up, though strained by a large population of migrants in transit, deported, or blocked from seeking asylum in the United States. The city’s security situation is worsening.
  • Advocates generally believe that this part of the border can manage a potential post-“Title 42” increase in migration. CBP’s smooth recent processing of 20,000 Ukrainian migrants showed that capacity to manage large flows of asylum seekers exists, when the will exists.
  • The termination of Border Patrol’s “Critical Incident Teams,” a product of advocacy that began in San Diego, is a step forward for border-wide human rights accountability. However, citizen monitors in San Diego have other human rights concerns regarding U.S. border law enforcement: misuse of force, dangerous vehicle pursuits, threats to civil liberties from surveillance technologies, deliberate misinformation to asylum seekers, and a steep increase in border wall injuries.

Read the whole thing here.

A New Resource About Border Abuse and Accountability

In our work at the U.S.-Mexico border, we regularly hear about abuses or improper law enforcement behavior by U.S. security agencies. But so often, whatever happens gets overtaken by the next events, forgotten.

I wanted to start damming up this steady, alarming stream going by us all the time. So, many months ago, I set up a new WordPress install, and my staff and I started throwing into it everything we’ve seen and heard since 2020 about abuses committed at the border.

The result is a database that we’re hosting at borderoversight.org. It has more than 220 entries so far, fully cited. We’ve captured these events and allegations, and organized them by category, place, agency, victim, and “accountability status.”

I’m not exactly “proud” of what we’ve created here. Actually, trying to read through it is a monstrous experience. There’s only so many use-of-force incidents, high-speed vehicle pursuits, spied-on U.S. citizens, Facebook slurs, non-return of belongings, dangerous deportations, and timid oversight that one can take in a single sitting. The picture is grim.

I don’t want this to be viewed, though, as an attack on the individuals who’ve chosen to build a career as a Border Patrol agent or CBP officer. I have met many agents and officers, and found nearly all to be decent and honorable people. But take CBP and Border Patrol as a whole, and something changes. Organizational cultures are powerful.

Our maintenance of borderoversight.org will be continuous: a database is never “done,” but we’ll use it to spin off a lot of other materials and carry out further work on what’s causing this problem and how to reform it.

I hope you find it useful as we work for greater accountability and cultural change at these agencies.

Here are some resources:

  • We added a page with links to reports about the border: from WOLA, from the U.S. and other governments, from non-governmental colleagues, and from the media. Organized by category. More than 270 of them so far are at borderoversight.org/reports.

And here’s a quick video explaining this work:

Big WOLA border project drops tomorrow

Tomorrow we’re launching a big new WOLA oversight resource about the border. I’ve been working on it for a while. It’s a site presenting a database of hundreds of recent credible allegations of human rights abuse and other improper law enforcement behavior at the U.S.-Mexico border.

It will also include a library of recommended reports and reading about the border, and 50 infographics about the border that I’ve produced over the past couple of years.

No link yet—I’m spending the day doing finishing touches and combing for errors. Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

WOLA Podcast: reflecting on 40 years of Latin America human rights advocacy with Geoff Thale

WOLA’s president, Geoff Thale, retired this week. Geoff has been doing citizen advocacy for human rights in Latin America, full time, since the early 80s—before this sort of work was even a “thing.”

The work looks vastly different today. We go over how the region, work in Washington, and the role of places like WOLA have changed in a reflective new podcast episode.


Here’s the language from WOLA’s website:

Geoff Thale has been with the Washington Office on Latin America since 1995, and has served as its president since 2019. Much has changed about advocacy and foreign policy since the beginning of his time in Washington. In this conversation, Adam and Geoff discuss the evolution of human rights advocacy towards Latin America, WOLA, and the opportunities and challenges for human rights advocates working on the region.

Listen to WOLA’s Latin America Today podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The main feed is here.

High Levels of Migration are Back. This Time, Let’s Respond Without a Crackdown

It looks like U.S. authorities encountered migrants 210,000 times in July at the U.S.-Mexico border. I think the number will increase. The pandemic is intensifying a pattern that we already saw in 2014, 2016, 2018-19: a jump in people fleeing several Latin American countries, punctuated by cruel, ineffectual crackdowns. It’s not just here: lots of countries in the region are absorbing migrants from Venezuela, Central America, Cuba, Haiti, and elsewhere.

Maureen Meyer and I just published an explainer laying out why, as the Biden administration reckons with this foreseeable but large new migration event, it doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t need another crackdown. This is a time to show the world how high levels of migration can be managed through increased processing and increased adjudication capacity.

We should be able to consider large numbers of protection claims, promptly and efficiently, without locking people up. The process should be so bureaucratic and boring that FOX News can’t even generate much outrage about it.

Anyway, this new, long-ish report explains the trends the border is facing right now, and lays out the outlines of how to handle it without freaking out or cracking down. It’s full of helpful graphics and we wrote it in the plainest English that we could manage.

Please share it—there’s a lot of nativist, even white supremacist garbage analysis out there, and we need to drown it out with facts.

From WOLA: Violence in Colombia Requires Bold Response from Biden Administration

We hammered out a new statement this morning about the situation in Colombia, which nearly six weeks after protests started is as tense as it’s ever been.

officials in the Biden administration have issued vague and insufficient pronouncements on the human rights violations that have taken place amidst the unrest.

This silence of the U.S. government is taking place even as the 2022 foreign aid request, issued May 28, includes approximately USD $140 million in new assistance for Colombia’s police. WOLA reiterates its call for a suspension of all U.S. sales of crowd control equipment to Colombia’s security forces, and a suspension of grant U.S. assistance to Colombia’s National Police, due to the high probability that such assistance might be misused while tensions continue to escalate.

To stop the ongoing violence, restrain further abuse by Colombia’s security forces, achieve justice for the victims, and prevent further damage, the U.S. government needs to take a bolder stance.

Read the whole thing at wola.org.

WOLA Podcast: A Snapshot of Human Rights and Democracy in Brazil

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:

  • How President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration has worked to antagonize and criminalize human rights defenders
  • What the impact of COVID has been on the country, and the government’s poor response
  • President Bolsonaro’s authoritarian actions attacking democracy and consolidating power
  • Police brutality and reform efforts, especially in light of the recent massacre in the Jacarezinho favela.
  • What Biden and human rights NGOs in the U.S. can do to support Brazilian civil society

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 PodcastsSpotifyiHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The main feed is here.

WOLA Podcast: Understanding Colombia’s Latest Wave of Social Protest

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 PodcastsSpotifyiHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The main feed is here.

Later today—Extrajudicial Killings in Colombia: The Whistleblower’s Perspective

You may have seen that Colombia’s transitional justice tribunal recently found that the country’s armed forces likely killed a shocking 6,402 civilians between 2002 and 2008. WOLA is putting on an event today at 4:00 Eastern to talk about it, and I’ll be presenting. Here’s the text of the announcement at WOLA’s website, where you can RSVP:

**Due to emergency security concerns, Sergeant Mora will not present during this panel**

The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) cordially invites you to our webinar:

Afro-Colombian Sergeant Carlos Eduardo Mora of Colombia’s 15th Mobile Brigade of Ocaña observed inconsistencies in the combat deaths that members of his battalion were reporting in their counterinsurgency statistics. In 2008, Mora denounced his colleagues for killing civilians and later passing them as enemy combats. These extrajudicial killings were widespread throughout the country and became nationally known—and erroneously termed as “false positives”—when a scandal involving 19 murdered young men from the southwestern Bogotá neighborhood of Soacha was undercovered. 

Mora has suffered greatly for his role as a whistleblower, having faced multiple types of retaliation like public humiliation and death threats. His security situation became so serious that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a resolution in 2013 urging the Colombian state to protect Mora and his family.

In February, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz, JEP)—Colombia’s transitional justice tribunal devised in the 2016 peace accord—revealed that the Colombian armed forces committed at least 6,402 extrajudicial killings between 2002 and 2008. In light of these disturbing revelations, WOLA’s Director for the Andes Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli will moderate a panel to discuss the role of individuals like Sergeant Mora and hear from two human rights and U.S. military aid experts. Alberto Yepes, Coordinator for the Human Rights Observatory of the Colombia-Europe-United States Coordination (Coordinación Colombia-Europa-Estados Unidos, CCEU) coalition, will discuss the implications of the JEP’s recent order on extrajudicial killings. Adam Isacson, WOLA’s Director for Defense Oversight, will discuss U.S. funding to Colombia’s armed forces and what actions can be taken to guarantee justice in these horrific cases.

Event Details:Thursday, March 18, 2021
4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. EDT (Washington D.C.)
3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. (Bogotá, Colombia)

Panelists:

Simultaneous interpretation between English and Spanish will be available.

Register here.

At wola.org: Putting the U.S.-Mexico ‘Border Crisis’ Narrative into Context

What’s happening at the border right now is concerning: there are bottlenecks in caring for unaccompanied minors. But it’s not a crisis. If anything, the crisis is in the large number of people who continue to be expelled, within hours, without a hearing.

Four of us at WOLA just published an explainer that I think is pretty good. Here’s an excerpt, but you should really read the whole thing, it’s got a lot of good graphics in it.

It may seem ironic, but even as it carried out the cruelest anti-migration policies in decades, the Trump administration presided over the largest flows of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border since the mid-2000s. 

This continued through Donald Trump’s last months in office, which saw migration rise sharply even as stringent pandemic measures made the pursuit of asylum impossible. This shows the futility of declaring war on asylum, and the inevitability of large migration flows at a time of overlapping security, economic, political, public health, and climate crises.

The jump in migration of Trump’s final months continued accelerating during Joe Biden’s first two months in office. This is happening even as Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) keeps in place “Title 42,” a probably illegal Trump-era pandemic provision that expels most migrants within hours, regardless of their protection needs.

Is there a “crisis” of people attempting to cross the border? 

The increased numbers of people crossing the border right now is something that border experts have predicted for some time now. The roots of what is happening are in the Trump administration policies that caused massive numbers of people to be stuck on the Mexican side of the border—policies like “Remain in Mexico” (which forced over 70,000 asylum seekers to wait for their U.S. court dates in Mexico border cities) and “metering,” a practice under which U.S. border authorities place severe limits on who is allowed to approach ports of entry and ask for asylum, in violation of U.S. and international law. 

The increased border crossings was predictable, not because of Biden administration policies like winding down “Remain with Mexico,” but because of the dangers put in place by Trump’s cruel and illegal policies of deterrence.

Of the 114 months since October 2011 for which WOLA has detailed monthly data, February 2021 saw the third-most Border Patrol encounters with migrants. (The actual number of people was probably much lower since, as noted below, many migrants expelled under Title 42 attempt to re-enter shortly afterward.)

While third-most sounds like a lot, the impact on border authorities’ workload is minimal because Title 42 persists. Of the 96,974 migrants whom Border Patrol “encountered” in February, it quickly expelled 72 percent—down only slightly from the end of the Trump administration, which expelled 85 percent in December and 83 percent in January. The remainder whom Border Patrol actually had to process last month—26,791 migrants—was the 77th most out of the past 114 months. Being in 77th place hardly constitutes a crisis.

There is a serious capacity issue right now, though, for one especially vulnerable category of migrant: children who arrive unaccompanied by a parent or guardian. 

There’s more — read on at wola.org.

From ‘Pause’ to ‘Reverse’: What Lies Ahead for Stopping Trump’s Border Wall and Fixing the Damage

We’re 3 weeks into the Biden administration. What’s happening with Trump’s border wall? How much got built? How much did it cost? How much is left unspent? How can we go about taking this down, or at least taking the most harmful parts down?

Here’s a new analysis at wola.org that shares answers to all these questions, to the best of my current knowledge based on a lot of document-digging and coalition work. Not to mention the diligent editing, presentation improvements, and communications support from the great team at WOLA.

Here’s a brief excerpt of the boring, numbers-filled part, plus a great infographic that our communications team designed. But do read the whole thing at WOLA’s website.

What got built, and what funds remain

The Trump administration managed to build 455 miles of wall along the border before January 20, leaving 703 of the U.S.-Mexico border’s 1,970 miles fenced off in some way. From past U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) updates we estimate that, of those 455 miles:

  • 49 miles were built where no fencing existed before;
  • 158 replaced existing, shorter pedestrian fencing;
  • 193 replaced existing vehicle barrier; and
  • 55 miles are new or replacement secondary fencing.

In all, then, the Trump administration built about 242 miles of fencing in places where it had previously been possible to walk across the border. The vast majority of the 455 miles are in Arizona and New Mexico.

The full amount of funding devoted to construction has totaled $16.45 billion between fiscal years 2017 and 2021. It was to build about 794 miles of wall. (That would be $20.7 million per mile.) Congress specifically approved only about one third of that amount ($5.8 billion). Trump wrested the remaining two-thirds from the budgets of the Defense and Treasury Departments.

Of that $16.45 billion, the amount that remains unspent—or that could be clawed back by canceling construction contracts—remains unclear. It’s one of the main things the new administration is trying to find out.

In-depth: Where the money for the wall came from

Category #1

  • $3.6 billion were taken in February 2019 from the Defense Department’s military construction funds. This was to build about 175 miles of border wall, of which about 87 had been completed as of January 8.
  • In late 2018 and early 2019, Donald Trump allowed parts of the federal government to shut down for 35 days rather than sign a 2019 budget bill that didn’t meet his demand for $5.7 billion in border wall funding. Trump finally gave in, but shortly afterward—on February 15, 2019—he declared a “national emergency” that, he alleged, gave him the authority to transfer money from the Defense budget to build border barriers.
  • The Pentagon saw $3.6 billion of its military construction plans cancelled or delayed as funds were transferred to the Homeland Security Department to build fencing.
  • Though both houses of Congress twice voted to disapprove this “emergency,” they could not muster the two-thirds vote necessary to override Trump’s vetoes of their disapprovals.
  • A challenge to this emergency continues to work its way through the courts, but the Supreme Court allowed building to continue while this happens.
  • Because these funds were not appropriated by Congress, President Biden is not required to keep spending this money—and his January 20 proclamation, notified to Congress on February 10, rescinds Trump’s emergency declaration.

Category #2

  • $6.331 billion ($2.5 billion in 2019 and $3.831 billion in 2020) were transferred from elsewhere in the Defense Department budget into the Department’s counter-drug account. To do so, Trump used a recurring authority in the Defense Appropriations law (Section 8005), which allows the president to move up to $4 billion each year between Defense budget accounts to respond to “unforeseen” requirements. This maneuver was to provide funds to build about 291 miles of border wall, of which about 256 had been completed as of January 8.
  • The Defense budget can be used to build walls, as long as the Department can claim there’s a counter-drug reason for doing so. Section 284(b)(7) of Title 10, U.S. Code, a piece of drug-war legislation that first passed a Democratic-majority Congress in 1990, allows the Defense Department to use its budget for “construction of roads and fences and installation of lighting to block drug smuggling corridors across international boundaries of the United States.”
  • The Trump administration filled up the Defense counter-drug account with wall-building money by transferring it, in 2019 (here and here) and 2020, from many other defense priorities, ranging from equipment to aircraft procurement and much else.
  • A challenge to this “unforeseen” transfer continues to work its way through the courts, but the Supreme Court allowed building to continue while this happens.
  • Because these funds were not appropriated by Congress, President Biden is not required to keep spending this money.

Category #3

  • $601 million were taken in 2019 from the Treasury Department’s Asset Forfeiture Fund, the proceeds from assets seized from accused criminals or terrorists. It’s not clear how many miles of wall this has built or may build, as CBP’s reporting lumps this money together with congressionally appropriated money for 2019 discussed in the fourth category.

Category #4

  • Congress appropriated $5.841 billion in the Homeland Security components of the federal budgets for 2017 ($341 million) and 2018-2021 ($1.375 billion each). These appropriated funds, plus the Treasury funds in category three, were to pay for about 328 miles of wall (extrapolating from CBP’s most recent update and a January 20 Washington Post estimate), of which 110 miles have been built.
  • Nearly all of what remains unbuilt from this category is in Texas, where most land abutting the border is privately owned.
  • Because these funds were appropriated by Congress to build a “barrier system” at the border, the Biden administration needs to figure out how to avoid spending them on Trump’s border wall. These provisions, the Washington Post reported, “would potentially oblige the Biden administration to complete up to 227 additional miles of border wall.”

The four categories of border wall funding all add up to $16.373 billion (about $77 million short of the amount that a Senate staffer cited to the Associated Press on January 22). It would pay for 794 miles of wall, of which 455 were built.

Read the whole report here.

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