InterReligious Task Force on Central America

For more than four decades, IRTF has welcomed dozens of interns who have helped carry forward our mission of promoting peace, human rights and systemic transformation across the Americas. Each year, our interns enter the living legacy of IRTF: never-ending advocacy, organizing, and accompaniment. Their experiences, like those of Lucia and Maddie, remind us of the importance of this work and of forming the next generation of justice seekers.

Maddie: As a small organization and a tight-knit community, IRTF’s support is direct. This summer, we accompanied migrants to their immigration hearings, speaking with them in a mix of broken English and Spanish, learning their stories and offering them support and companionship. We connected with other community groups to learn how we could best inform local migrant and refugee families through Know Your Rights training. We challenged our own comfort and security by attempting to take on the fear and uncertainty faced by the migrant community.

Lucia: IRTF has been an indispensable part of discerning the world I want to live in, the role I will have in that, and the way I hope to go about it. This haven of social justice, activism, and human-centered civic engagement has become the foundation on which I hope to build a lifetime of advocacy and purposeful action.

Please read more from the reflections of student interns Maddie and Lucia.

This list of 17 lawsuits filed over immigration issues in Ohio in2025 provides insight on the obscurity of reasoning that leads to people being detained. 

Drawing on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., FOR an Religious Peace Fellowship oppose the U.S. attack on Venezuela, urging nonviolent engagement, humanitarian solidarity, and an end to imperial military interventions.

A sharp reflection on how U.S. officials have long responded to state violence by blaming the dead—-from the murder of churchwomen in El Salvador to the killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE—-and a warning that such lies can only hold for so long.

A new report by Austin Kocher evaluating the latest ICE detention data gives insight on ICE's methodolgy and schemes . The Trump administration continues to represent aggressive immigration enforcement practices across the country as necessary to address threats to national security and public safety. The available data so far do not support these claims. There are periods of tremendous surges in the growth of non-criminal detainees, and, except for the beginning of last February (2025), no corresponding surge in the detention of people with criminal convictions.

Due to the dramatic and chaotic ending to the recent presidential election in Honduras, the international human rights organization Global Exchange and the Center for the Study of Democracy wrote a report stating that Honduras is navigating the collision of corporate lawsuits, historical corruption, and the urgent struggle for democracy.

The report concludes that Honduras is trapped between the desire to reform and a pushback from international capital and domestic elites. To break this “siege,” Global Exchange recommends that Honduras withdraw from international arbitration treaties that prioritize profits over human rights; abolish ZEDEs to restore full national sovereignty; establish an independent mechanism to protect human rights defenders; and prosecute those responsible for the murders of activists, and urges the international community, especially the U.S., to respect Honduran sovereignty and allow fair elections.

Global Exchange’s report serves as both a warning and a call to action to stand with the Honduran people in their struggle for democracy and dignity.

The Trump administration aims to send thousands of immigrants to the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center where fifteen men remain in indefinite detention, 24 years since the abusive and torture prison opened.

Congress can step up and assert its authroity. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia has introduced resolutions in the Senate seeking information on the human rights practices of six countries to which the U.S. has reportedly deported immigrants who have no ties to those countries. Using a process under Section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act, a US senator can force debate and a vote to scrutinize and restrict security aid to countries engaging in “gross violations of human rights,” requiring the State Department to report on these issues.

Even if the resolutions fail, they allow senators to raise concerns on the floor about sending immigrants to places where they may be tortured. NRCAT has issued an action alert urging supporters to contact their senators about it.

Most of the Americas have suffered from interference from their powerful northern neighbour --and are usually the worse off for it. The US bombardment of Venezuela and the capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro, follow a long history of interventions in South and Central America and the Caribbean over the past two centuries. But they also mark an unprecedented moment as the first direct US military attack on a South American country.