As deaths in US immigration detention hit a staggering 20-year high, the UN's top human rights official is sounding the alarm over a secretive spike in custody fatalities and alleged torture. While the Trump administration fiercely denies the crisis, internal watchdogs and human rights groups are launching urgent investigations into what critics call a "breathtaking breach of care."
Please join us for an evening of discussion and reflection on Cooperative Culture!
The world we live in greatly favors domination culture. We see this culture in our work places, in our government, in our schools, and even in some of our houses of worship. We are constantly presented with organizational structures that divide, and alienate us. Ways of living and working that focus on control, authority, and management.
“Hundreds of thousands of people who hold legal status... now face losing their ability to work and being torn from their families and homes.”
Starting in May, immigration attorneys began reporting that they were arriving at immigration court to find judges’ dockets packed with over 100 hearings scheduled in a single morning—a phenomenon that quickly became known as “mega master calendar hearings,” ...
Members of the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace (CIJP) are subjected to continuous surveillance, intimidation, and credible threats against their lives. Beginning in March, CIJP member Juan Carlos Gaona, began receiving text messages. The first stated that an operation to murder him in Sincelejo, Sucre Department, had failed only by chance due to the presence of an Army truck near the place where he was holding a meeting. The message described his recent activities in detail, revealing that he was under surveillance, and warned that he would not be as fortunate next time, with the clear intention of attacking him and other members.
This incident is not an isolated occurrence but more a symbolic case of the danger faced by human right defenders in Colombia by illegal armed groups who directly target those who support and accompany victims of human rights violations. The failure of the state to fully implement the protection scheme ordered by of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Protection Measures 629-03) needs to be addressed now. When defenders are silenced through threats, fear, and violence, the protection of all victims is placed at risk.
A shocking government report has revealed a 38% surge in cancer deaths and toxic arsenic poisoning in Guatemalan communities surrounding a controversial silver mine. Yet, despite these damning health findings and overwhelming rejection by indigenous Xinka communities, corporate giants are aggressively pushing to restart operations.
Nahua Indigenous communities in the states of Michoacan and Guerrero—already victim to criminal organizations for decades—are now being forcefully displaced and targeted by military grade weaponry as the territorial disputes between the groups “Los Tlacos” and “Los Ardillos” are intensifying. Using high-caliber weapons, surveillance drones, and paramilitary tactics, the rivaling groups have encircled villages, burned homes, cut electricity and phone service, and fired shots at residents from the hillsides. There have been more than 2,000 people displaced at least five reported murders.
We are concerned that the forced displacement might be linked to corruption and economic motives. Considering that the municipalities under attack hold forests, aquifers, fertile farmland and over 2,000 hectares that have already been granted as concessions to mining companies, there are surely other beneficiaries to the communities being forcibly removed.
While the Trump administration is exploiting this crisis to create a narrative to justify threats of military intervention in Mexico—a framing that we at IRTF entirely reject—the answer to what is happening cannot be silence or inaction.
Join us to learn more about CatholicSocial Teaching and immigration and the work already being done in the Cleveland area to support our immigrant and refugee neighbors.
“Neighboring the Dear Neighbor: A Catholic Response to Immigration in Cleveland” is being held on Saturday, June 13, 10am-12pm at the St Joseph Center, 3430 Rocky River Dr., Cleveland 44111.
Free and open to the public.
Registration is suggested: http://tinyurl.com/csjneighbor
*We smash authoritarianism through organizing and movement building, we don't condone smashing actual things you don't own. We are committed to strategic non-violence. Also, we just like the word SMASH =)
to register click here
The newly signed Secure America Act injects a massive $69.5 billion into federal immigration enforcement through 2029. By bypassing the traditional appropriations process, the bill grants ICE and CBP unprecedented funding with minimal congressional oversight, giving the agencies sweeping flexibility to ramp up deportations and state-level enforcement.
