The Trump administration aims to send thousands of immigrants to the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center where fifteen men remain in indefinite detention, 24 years since the abusive and torture prison opened.
Due to the dramatic and chaotic ending to the recent presidential election in Honduras, an international human rights organization called Global Exchange and the Center for the Study of Democracy wrote a report stating that Honduras is navigating the collision of corporate lawsuits, historical corruption, and the urgent struggle for democracy.
Most of the Americas have suffered from interference from their powerful northern neighbour – and are usually the worse off for it. The US bombardment of Venezuela and the capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro, follow a long history of interventions in South and Central America and the Caribbean over the past two centuries. But they also mark an unprecedented moment as the first direct US military attack on a South American country.
The tensions between the U.S and Venezuela have only intensified as the U.S. uses political, economic, and escalating military strategies to target the Venezuelan government, who they accuse of corruption and drug trafficking into the U.S. This has caused immense hardships against the Venezuelan people; however they continue to stand strong and urge for just and lasting peace.
In her 2024 book Sanctuary People: Faith-Based Organizing in Latina/o Communities, Dr. Gina Pérez, Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Oberlin College, presents a practical political strategy to cultivate safety, trust and belonging in all communities. It includes both physical sanctuary, where sacred space becomes a place of refuge, and a broader commitment to accompaniment and public advocacy.
Here Dr. Pérez reflects on the Catholic Church’s Year of Jubilee of Hope. Pope Leo XIV frames migrants and refugees as “messengers of hope”—a powerful challenge to the stigmatizing narratives that characterize migrants and global migration in our world today.
Dr. Pérez also highlights essays by two young IRTF student interns who are living out their commitment to “welcoming, protecting, promoting and integrating the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable…” By participating in acts of accompaniment and collaboration across faith and secular communities, they credit IRTF with playing a significant role in their formation to become leaders in a new generation for social justice. Student intern Lucia reflects: “IRTF has been an indispensable part of discerning the world I want to live in, the role I will have in that, and the way I hope to go about it.”
This article by The Guardian illustrates how the act of protesting is despite the societal scepcism that often dominates its image a very powerful thing to indulge in and that historically proves to reshape the political landscape.
The Ohio Immigrant alliance published an article exposing ICE's "Operation Buckeye" a large-scale immigration enforcement operation carried out by ICE in Ohio, how violently it has been carried out and how the numbers expose a methodology of profiling and arbitrary enforcement.
This underlined by quotes and reports of the episcopal clergy, civil and human rights activists and indigenous leaders
This article by npr delineates how the trump administration is systematically seizing immigrants legal options by taking away their temporary protected status
This article by CovertAction Magazine provides an elaborate overview of Honduras' recent electoral history, its many struggles with this very crucial democratic procedure and the very recent electoral disaster.
This article from NACLA provides insight on the Trump administration's contradictory polices. Occurrences such as the bombing of fisherboats in the Caribbean are contrasted with the pardon for fomer president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted in US federal court for trafficking tons of drugs into the US.
