In Part Two of her report on Immigration Jails in Ohio, Lynn Tramonte of Ohio Immigrant Alliance examines questions such as:
to read the report click here
In Part One of her report on Immigration Jails in Ohio Lynn Tramonte examines questions such as:
to read entire report click here
Audio recordings published by Spain’s Canal RED suggest that US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are allegedly working to facilitate the return of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez to power. The media outlet published alleged audio recordings in which Hernandez, current President Nasry Asfura and a group of Honduran officials are heard discussing in detail a supposed operation driven by the US and financed by Israel to weave a network of corruption in Honduras, with the aim of turning the Central American country into a US investment hub.
World leaders, civil society, and frontline movements are gathering in Santa Marta, Colombia, for the first ever global conference focused specifically on transitioning away from fossil fuels, a major shift in climate diplomacy.
A federal appeals court today ruled that President Trump’s Day 1 proclamation aimed at completely shutting down asylum at the border is unlawful. The panel of judges rejected the administration's claim that the president could use emergency authority to block asylum seekers from even applying for protection.
Since September 2025, the U.S. armed forces have killed more than 175 people aboard small boats in operations that the Trump administration characterizes as attacks against “narco-terrorists.” The newly formed Shield of the Americas coalition brings together 17 states, including Argentina, Costa Rica, and Paraguay, in a U.S.-led effort to coordinate military pressure against the cartels — a move that critics fear will further institutionalize these extrajudicial killings.
A new international outcry—a global coalition of 125 organizations issuing an urgent public appeal to all states to immediately cease all forms of support for US extrajudicial killings—underscores a shift from directly condemning U.S. actions to also holding third-party countries accountable for their role in these deadly attacks.
When Donald Trump returned to office on 20 January last year, he began rolling out a draconian migration policy that has effectively ended access to asylum at the US-Mexico border and shaken up migration dynamics throughout Latin America.
One of the first moves the Trump administration made was to shut down a pathway to seek asylum in the US for people in Mexico using a cellphone application called CBP One. In a matter of minutes, about 300,000 people in the app’s pipeline, including Mario Torres, found themselves stranded.
Mario left South America in September 2024. He traversed the Darién Gap – the lawless and dangerous stretch of jungle connecting Colombia and Panama. In Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, his money ran low and travelling wore him down. In Veracruz, Mexico, he was shot by men who wanted to rob or kidnap him. Mario eventually made it to the northern Mexican city of Monterrey in January 2025, but by then it was already too late.
The New Humanitarian has spent much of the past 15 months reporting throughout Latin America, trying to piece together an answer to one pressing question: what happened to the 300,000 people who saw their dreams of a better life suddenly rebuffed when Trump returned to office?
The picture that emerged is of a situation very much still in flux: some people have returned home, others have run out of resources and have ended up stranded in various countries, while many are still searching for a place where they can find stability.
Recent elections in Honduras have returned right-wing leadership to power, with immediate implications for the autonomy of Indigenous communities.
Along the Pacific coast of Guatemala on plantations subcontracted by Chiquita, agricultural workers with gaunt faces thread their way between banana trees, rubber boots sinking into black mud, machetes sharpened and strapped to their belts. They know the day will be long: 10 hours, sometimes 12, for a paltry wage – often below the legal minimum.
Although these plantations are certified by Rainforest Alliance (as “safe” for workers and the environment), researchers heard the same accounts from workers over and over: extreme fatigue, inadequate pay, unprotected exposure to chemicals, restrictions on the freedom of association.
The fungicide Mancozeb—banned in the European Union in 2020 after being classified as an endocrine disruptor that’s toxic to reproduction—is routinely sprayed on the banana fields. Without any warning to the workers, the crop dusters fly very low, and the yellow acidic powder falls straight on them. The certification body Rainforest Alliance has granted an exceptional authorization for its use on Guatemalan plantations until December 31, 2028, citing the need for “rigorous disease management” of the Black Sigatoka leaf disease. Other fungicides, herbicides and insecticides are applied throughout the growing cycle, both from the air and workers applying them with backpack sprayers.
This report by Public Eye takes us deep inside the plantations where the global economy meets the silence – and often complicity – of local institutions. It’s a world where thousands of people labor in near-total invisibility. Here, Guatemala’s brutal history is still being written with a machete; it’s a story not of progress, but of sweat, pesticides and drug cocktails to alleviate workers’ aches and pains.
(You can learn about alternative trade organizations that partner with worker-owned banana farms at EqualExchange.coop )
Entering the San Salvador district of Mejicanos no longer means taking your life in your hands, like it did a decade ago when Kathya Quintanilla left home to meet a friend at a local park.
