IRTF News

District Judge Robert Summerhays granted an injunction to Republican state attorneys challenging the halting of checks known as Title 42. Aimed at stopping virus spread in migrant holding facilities, Title 42 was twice extended by President Biden. More than 1.7 million people have been expelled under the policy. On Friday, Judge Summerhays in Lafayette, Louisiana, ruled that the policy would stay in place while a lawsuit by more than 20 states played out in court.

On May  20, a federal court in Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction against the Biden administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s decision to end Title 42. This decision means that the United States Border Patrol is required to continue to expel migrants immediately upon encounter, thus, denying refugees access to asylum or other humanitarian relief. “We are greatly dismayed by the court’s decision to continue to deny asylum seekers their right to seek safety,” stated the Quixote Center in response. “Title 42 is a failed policy that has been proven to do nothing to prevent the spread of COVID-19, nor has it been effective at deterring migration. There have been 1,934,097 expulsions under Title 42 since it went into effect in March of 2020.” 

Abortion was banned completely in Colombia until 2006, when an initial constitutional court ruling—prompted by several of today’s Causa Justa activists—decriminalized terminations on three grounds: if the life or health of the woman was at risk; in cases of severe fetal abnormality; and if the pregnancy was the result of rape. Colombia is now “at the forefront of the region and the world,” according to doctor and feminist activist Ana Cristina González, a spokesperson for Causa Justa. In February, Colombia’s constitutional court removed abortion (up to 24 weeks) from the criminal code in response to a court case brought by Causa Justa—the spearhead of a wide-ranging social and legal campaign of more than 120 groups and thousands of activists....Latin America continues to push the limits of what is possible. Barely a month after the Colombian ruling, Chile’s constitutional convention—which is drafting a new constitution for the country—passed (by a large majority) an article enshrining sexual and reproductive rights as fundamental and guaranteed by the state. 

For many years, the jungle region known as La Mosquitia in northeast Honduras has been an ideal corridor for international drug trafficking. However, another criminal economy has emerged at the same time: illegal cattle ranching. As a result, the region has been plunged into a state of terror, where criminals threaten the land and the Indigenous communities that inhabit it. The Rio Plátano Biosphere Reserve is the largest protected reserve in Honduras. It’s located in a region known as La Mosquitia, covering the departments of Gracias a Dios, Colón and Olancho in the far northeast reaches of the country along the border with Nicaragua. The majority of this area is covered by jungle and ancestral territory for a number of Indigenous communities. According to the reserve's Indigenous communities, settlers come to La Mosquitia to find land to raise bovine cattle, which are primarily used for their meat. The settlers ride around openly through the jungle in jeeps, cutting down trees with chainsaws, setting fire to the land and planting pastures to feed thousands of cattle, despite this being a protected area. These individuals also come heavily armed, and have other reasons for cattle ranching: facilitating cocaine trafficking and laundering the illicit proceeds it generates.

The US has barred Guatemala's Attorney General Consuelo Porras from entering the country, accusing her of being involved in corruption. The US state department said Ms Porras had "repeatedly obstructed and undermined anti-corruption investigations in Guatemala". Ms Porras has denied any wrongdoing and said that fighting corruption has been her priority. On Monday, she was sworn in for a second four-year term in office.

More than 30,000 people have been arrested under a “state of exception” in El Salvador, police said, as President Nayib Bukele’s crackdown on armed gangs continues. El Salvador’s Congress approved a “state of exception” in late March after a weekend of gang-related violence left more than 80 people dead, spurring widespread fears among residents in the Central American nation. The order, under which the authorities have been able to suspend certain civil liberties, was renewed for another 30 days in late April. Salvadoran police said on Twitter on Monday that 30,506 arrests had been carried out “since the start of the war against the gangs”, including “536 terrorists” who were arrested on Sunday alone.

The Associated Press reports: “A plan to create special self-governing zones for foreign investors in Honduras has been thrown into limbo with the new government’s repeal of a law many criticized as surrendering sovereignty. [The zones for employment and economic development known as ZEDEs are] free from import and export taxes, but could set up their own internal forms of government, as well as courts, security forces, schools and even social security systems." The article refers to the zones already being developed, including Prospera (a 58-acre development on the island of Roatan) and Orquidea (an agro-industrial park near the city of Choluteca that produces peppers and tomatoes for export).

The Biden Administration expelled 450 people to Haiti, including 44 children, 20 of whom were infants, on three flights this week. These flights bring the total to 235 expulsion flights to Haiti since Biden took office, more than 23,000 people in total, and 21,000 in the eight months since the debacle in Del Rio last September. Another 8,000 people were summarily expelled into Mexico during the Del Rio crisis. Over the last few months, the number of people attempting to flee Haiti by boat has also increased dramatically, as measured by those captured and returned to Haiti by the Coast Guard. Within Haiti there is political stagnation and spiraling violence. At last 39 people have been killed in gang violence in the Port au Prince metro area since the end of April, and 10,000 people have been forced from their homes. This humanitarian disaster is what Biden is expelling people into; hundreds of people every week are caught in a relentless campaign of mass expulsions.