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 piece highlights five recent in-depth reports that use original data and investigative research to reveal how U.S. immigration enforcement, detention, and deportation systems are expanding and shifting in practice. It argues that careful, expert-driven analysis—rather than headline news—offers the clearest view of who is being targeted, how enforcement works, and who profits from it.

Progressive leaders from 20 countries met in Bogotá for the Nuestra América convening, adopting a joint declaration to coordinate resistance to U.S. coercive policies and defend sovereignty and self-determination across the Americas. The gathering launched a new hemispheric alliance of governments, unions, and social movements committed to collective action and international solidarity.

ICE’s detention system is expanding at an unprecedented pace, with 237 facilities now detaining migrants.  Making sense of that expansion requires making the limited data ICE releases publicly accessible and understandable. That means tools that turn spreadsheets into insight, that make facility-level information accessible to reporters on deadline, researchers conducting analysis, and advocates tracking conditions on the ground.DetentionReports.com, a public tool tracking ICE detention facilities, has launched major upgrades including an interactive national map, new comparison graphs, and an archive of ICE detention contracts.

This article revisits the Iran-Contra scandal through a new, accessible account that shows how deeply it undermined democratic norms and the balance of powers in the United States. It argues that far from being a forgotten Cold War footnote, Iran-Contra remains a crucial warning about executive overreach, secrecy, and the erosion of accountability.

A new Salvadoran film about the 1981 El Mozote massacre premiered with government backing, sparking controversy for downplaying state responsibility while promoting the country’s security image. At the same time, survivors won a historic step toward justice as the long-stalled massacre case advanced toward trial after decades of impunity.