IRTF News

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.

You’ve heard of the “banana republic”? It started with the railroads. In the late 1800s, the Meiggs family (Boston entrepreneurs) began constructing a rail line in Costa Rica. They recruited workers from the US. But they were unprepared for the reality of manual labor in a  tropical environment—yellow fever, venomous wildlife, brutal manual work clearing dense jungle with machetes in the heat of monsoon season. When they died in great numbers, the family went to New Orleans and brought 700 inmates to Costa Rica. They promised pardons in exchange for labor. But only 25 survived!

So, bananas? As the railroad was built, along its tracks, something else had been growing. To feed his workforce, the project leader had planted banana trees along the railroad lines. Bananas grew fast, grew abundantly, and had only just been introduced to the American consumer at the Worlds’ Fair in 1876.

When Costa Rica defaulted on loan payments in 1882, the Boston entrprenuer made a deal. He would finish the final forty miles of track with this string attached: 800,000 acres of tax-free land along the railroad and a 99-year lease on the rail route itself. A single man now controlled the land, the transport, and the market.

By the time the railroad was completed in 1890, 5,000 men had died building it. The European market now had access to coffee from Costa Rica.  And the banana empire began.

(You can learn about alternative trade organizations that partner with worker-owned banana farms at EqualExchange.coop )

The Trump administration’s FY2027 budget combines a major defense buildup with sharp cuts to foreign aid, including a $12 billion reduction in diplomacy and assistance spending and a stronger focus on migration control and strategic leverage. In Latin America and the Caribbean, it shifts away from democracy and human-rights programming toward drug-war, anti-migration, and executive-controlled funding priorities.

This Austin Kocher report examines the unseen casualties of ICE's detention network, explaining how bureaucratic violence achieves to evade accountability for preventable death.

The American immigration Council reports on ICE conractors' use of artifficial intelligence to track down immigrants. 

Thjis excerpt from a Christosal report highlights El Salvadors democrstic erosion under dictator Nayib Bukele.

to read the whole rreport click here

As El Salvador's state of emergency turns four years old, families warn of the toll of the mass arrests on children.

A system of concentration camps is being built and it's time the nation reckon with this monstrosity before any more people are killed. ICE detention camps now threaten to become a central instrument of repression under the Trump administration.