IRTF News

People move for many reasons. In Latin America and the Caribbean, violence and deep poverty propel many people to migrate in search of safety and peace. In recent years, natural disasters fueled by climate change have intensified, displacing whole communities. Local organizations that provide humanitarian relief have faced tremendous obstacles to providing direct aid to migrants, including legal and health care assistance. During the pandemic, governments have imposed even greater restrictions on civil society organizations—sometimes using the political cover of the public health emergency to pass restrictive policies with long term implications.  In Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, U.S. policy has historically created or worsened systemic problems. Instead of supporting democracy and economic stability, the U.S. government has financed and trained military and security forces; played a role in fueling civil wars; legitimized governments taking power through coups and electoral fraud; and pursued unjust economic policies.  

Mireya Andrade was a student activist in a communist political party working alongside her boyfriend, Javier Castillo, who was a party member and local activist. Just days after winning local elections in Miranda, Cauca, Castillo disappeared during a 1987 military operation searching for rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Unión Patriótica, the organization Castillo worked for, was not affiliated with the guerilla group, but in the 1980s, at the height of the Colombian civil war, being a communist was reason enough for the army to detain him. The last time anyone saw Castillo was when soldiers stopped his car in the conflict-ridden department of Cauca. In the weeks that followed, Andrade received anonymous death threats for her activism work. Thirty years later, exactly what happened to Castillo remains a mystery.

Antonio de la Cruz, 47, was shot on Wednesday as he was leaving his house with his 23-year-old daughter, who was seriously injured, according to state prosecutors and the newspaper that employed him. This brings the number of journalists killed this year in the country, one of the world’s most dangerous for media workers, to 12. Attacks on the press have increased 85% in the three years since president Andrés Manuel López Obrador took power. Seven journalists were killed in the whole of 2021, compared with 12 so far this year.

When you walk down the grocery aisle, you’re bound to see any number of stickers and labels – more every passing year – proclaiming the sustainability, fairness, and transparency of a product. Not surprisingly, one of the most common questions farmworkers in Immokalee get is this:  What’s different about the Fair Food label, anyway?  What makes the Fair Food Program stand out in the field of social responsibility?

Read this summary of Border Focus Month Infographics to get an overview on immigration, detention and border issues like ICE Detention, Detention of Unaccompanied Children, the 100-Mile Border Zone, The Digital Border Wall, Alternatives to Detention, ICE 287 (g) Agreements, Deportations and Forced Removals, and Root Causes of Migration!

Read this fact sheet from IRTF to learn about Temporary Protected Status (TPS), what countries are currently designated for TPS and what the challenges are!

Another anniversary of the June 28, 2009 coup d’etat that changed Honduras forever is here. This year, on this date, the Honduras Solidarity Network of North America (HSN) not only reaffirms continuing solidarity with the Honduran social movements and opposition to the US policies in the region that continue destructive interventionism and interference, but we also join the commemorations of struggle and celebration by the Honduran people of their victory in electing a government born out of the blood, sweat, and tears of years of resistance. This victory opens up a bigger space for the people and their movements to continue fighting for the re-foundation of their country. Still, they face powerful enemies and obstacles in their path.  

Abortion pills smuggled into the United States from Mexico inside teddy bears. A New York home used as a pill distribution hub. A small apartment just south of the U.S.-Mexico border converted into a safe place for women to end their pregnancies. Networks of Mexican feminist collectives working with counterparts in the United States are ramping up their efforts to help women in the U.S. who are losing access to abortion services to end their pregnancies. With the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the landmark decision that gave women the right to access abortion last week, these networks of activists are preparing to be busier than ever. So far this year, according to the organizations, they have helped at least 1,700 women living the U.S. who have sought their help.

Today, June 28, 2022, 13 years after the 2009 coup d’état, COPINH, together with the daughters and son of Berta Cáceres, filed a criminal complaint with the Dutch Attorney General’s office against the Dutch bank, FMO, and its directors for the crimes of complicity in acts of corruption, embezzlement, money laundering and violence in their financing of the Agua Zarca Project of the Atala Zablah family. The criminal accusation is against the legal entity of the bank FMO (Nederlandse Financierings-Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden N.V.) 51% owned by the Dutch State and against its main executives; Nanno Kleiterp, honorary president of the European Development Finance Institutions (EDFI); Jurgen Rigterink, current first vice president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD); and Linda Broekhuizen, former interim executive director of the FMO, among other executives.

Mass death has once again hit the U.S.-Mexico border. And once again, it didn’t have to happen. As the border zone enters the hottest weeks of the summer, the U.S. government must begin, right now, a fundamental re-examination of the policies—the decisions made, and not made—that are leading to the preventable deaths of hundreds of people. It’s hard to fathom the horror beheld by the San Antonio, Texas city worker who heard a cry for help coming from a trailer truck parked along a road on the city’s outskirts, on the evening of June 27. It’s even harder to fathom the suffering of the 62 migrants inside, including parents and children, locked in without ventilation or water.