Anti-Militarism: News & Updates

They said they were punished in a dark room called the island, where they were trampled, kicked and forced to kneel for hours.

One man said officers thrust his head into a tank of water to simulate drowning. 

Another said he was forced to perform oral sex on guards wearing hoods.

Others were shot by rubber bullets.

They said they were told by officials that they would die in the Salvadoran prison, that the world had forgotten them.

“‘You are all terrorists,’” Edwin Meléndez, 30, recalled being told by officers who added: “‘Terrorists must be treated like this.’”

When they could no longer take it, they held a hunger strike. They cut themselves, writing protest messages on sheets in blood.

One detainee, age 26, was so sick that he could not get out of bed, and other men had to feed him. Taken to the infirmary, he was beaten in front of medical personnel. A doctor told him:  “‘Resign yourself. It’s time for you to die.’”

To send the 252 Venezuelan men to prison in El Salvador —along with many Salvadoran nationals—in March of this year, Mr. Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a sweeping, rarely used 18th-century law that allows for the expulsion of people from an invading nation.

In September, Mr. Trump, speaking at the United Nations General Assembly,  praised Salvadoran officials for “the successful and professional job they’ve done in receiving and jailing so many criminals that entered our country.”

Mayor Adán Fúnez of Tocoa granted land to journalist Héctor Madrid and pastor Erlin Henríquez—administrators of Facebook pages that later ran smear campaigns against peasant and environmental organizations in Bajo Aguán. These pages promoted pro-Fúnez and pro-Dinant narratives, defended individuals accused of belonging to the criminal group Los Cachos, and spread disinformation labeling land defenders as criminal actors. Complaints filed by the Agrarian Platform and COPA accuse this coordinated media network of inciting violence and legitimizing attacks tied to criminal groups and local power structures.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work promoting democracy and human rights. However, her record and political alliances tell a different story. Machado has expressed support for U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, aligned herself with Trump, Netanyahu, and far-right groups in Europe, and used anti-migrant and nationalist rhetoric to advance her cause. Her positions raise questions about what kind of “peace” and “democracy” she represents, and how her leadership affects the broader Venezuelan struggle against dictatorship and foreign interference.

As ICE expands its use of A.I. surveillance tools from Palantir, Graphite, and Zignal Labs, scholar Austin Kocher warns that the U.S. is adopting “digital authoritarianism with American characteristics.” In his new article for Dialogues on Digital Society, Kocher argues that ICE’s tech-driven deportation machine mirrors tactics once seen only in China—raising urgent questions about power, accountability, and how far democracy can bend before it breaks.

As immigration raids sweep through Latino neighborhoods across the U.S. Southwest, Catholic and interfaith communities are stepping up as lifelines of faith and resistance. In Coachella, California, parishioners deliver food to immigrants too terrified to leave their homes. In Nogales, Mexico, nuns and volunteers cook daily meals for deportees. And in El Paso, faith groups pray outside federal buildings as they watch asylum seekers’ cases—most ending in denial.

While politicians defend the crackdown as “the Lord’s work,” church leaders are calling it what it is: a moral crisis. Pope Leo XIV has condemned mass deportations as “inhuman,” urging U.S. bishops to speak louder for compassion. Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso and others have taken that call to heart, demanding solidarity and reminding the faithful of America’s founding ideals of justice and welcome.

Across border cities, fear runs deep—families skipping Mass, children too afraid to go to school, priests celebrating online to reach those in hiding. Yet amid raids, trauma, and despair, faith endures. From Texas to California, believers continue to feed, shelter, and stand with the persecuted, transforming prayer into quiet defiance against a system that criminalizes hope.