Anti-Militarism: News & Updates

President Biden halted the returns when he took office, but in September a U.S. District Court ordered his administration to reinstate the program, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols. After months of negotiations with Mexico, the Biden administration relaunched MPP in early December, starting in El Paso. Immigration advocates were furious, blaming Biden for not pushing back harder. But two months after its restart, the new version of MPP bears little resemblance to President Donald Trump’s. The Biden administration has re-implemented the program with a narrow scope and none of the zeal demonstrated by Trump officials. Border arrests are even higher now than in 2019, but El Paso’s immigration courts remain light on MPP cases. On a recent afternoon, two MPP enrollees, both adult men from Nicaragua, appeared before immigration judge Nathan L. Herbert. The next day, there were three.

For nearly 30 years, the town of El Carmen de Bolivar and the surrounding region of Montes de María were infamous for violence perpetrated against LGBTQ+ individuals, targeted at one time or another over the country’s long civil war by rightwing paramilitaries, leftwing guerrillas, government soldiers and the police. In 1999, Helicopters were dropping pamphlets with a warning to the LGBTQ+ society to leave town. Now, Many of those who left are returning as their home has become much safer. “It gives me a lot of joy to see how we have been able to achieve so much in a place that people thought was impossible," Tito, leader of a folk dance group, says.

After analyzing the inauguration of Honduras's new president Xiomara Castro and her inauguration speech, Jesuit priest Ismael Moreno, Director of the Team for Reflection, Research and Communication, Eric-sj, concludes that it will be four years of government in an internal environment complicated by the presence of the surviving forces of the dictatorship. There will be pressure from different sectors interested in weakening President Castro as soon as possible, he says. To face these powerful enemies, Xiomara Castro needs the support of the people and the social movements in Honduras.

As a candidate, President Biden spoke out forcefully against the cruelty, xenophobia, and racism against immigrants and other communities of color stirred by President Trump and other leaders. As president, President Biden from Day One made bold commitments to build an immigration system that is fair, humane, and that “welcomes immigrants, keeps families together, and allows people across the country – both newly arrived immigrants and people who have lived here for generations – to more fully contribute to this country.” In this report, the We Are Home campaign assesses Biden’s Year One on immigration by looking at his most high-profile promises and longstanding priorities for the coalition.

On January 31, 2022 family and friends of detained migrant Jauna Alonzo Santizo traveled from San Mateo Ixitán to Guatemala City to present a petition letter to the Mexican Consulate. This letter–signed by 5,135 individuals and 43 organizations–demands the immediate release of Santizo, who has been detained in Tamaulipas, Mexico for seven years for a crime she and her family maintain that she did not commit. In an attempt to migrate to the United States in search of better economic opportunities in 2014, Santizo was kidnapped in Mexico and forced to work for her captors. When police arrived on the scene, they accused Santizo of being a trafficker, but because Santizo–a Maya Chuj woman–did not speak Spanish at the time, she was unable to defend herself. Without legal counsel, consulate support, or even an interpreter, Santizo was forced at gunpoint to sign a document incriminating herself. US Border Patrol and Customs has reported an increased need for interpreters that speak languages like Chuj; the number of migrants that speak only Mayan Indigenous languages apprehended at the US Southern Border doubled from 2020 to 2021.

During the last year, protests were held every 20 hours in Honduras, according to the Committee for Free Expression (C-Libre). The main reasons for the social uprisings were the Special Employment and Economic Development Zones (ZEDES), salary payments, fuel cuts and street repairs. Since the military-backed coup d'etat 2009, Honduras has undergone a change in its social, political and economic life, which has made the welfare of the people more precarious, leading to multiple human rights violations, which left Honduras in an atmosphere of violence.

As the left resumes power with President Xiomara Castro’s inauguration, the official seeks shelter in the United States. Honduran defense minister, Gen. Fredy Díaz, said that he fears being charged with corruption by the newly elected democratic socialist President Xiomara Castro, especially considering the role the Honduran military played in the coup that ousted her husband, former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. Now the Biden administration is faced with the decision of whether to grant Díaz asylum before possible corruption charges, given that in his role as defense minister, he was at the helm of the Honduran military. The question will serve as a test of how serious the current U.S. government is about respecting the autonomy of governments in the region.