IRTF News

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown the extent the U.S. can marshal its immigration resources to be a safe haven for those in need — when it wants to. In the month since the Russian invasion began, the U.S. has offered Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Ukrainians, allowing those already here to remain without fear of deportation. The U.S. government also waived the Title 42 prohibition on seeking asylum for Ukrainians who present themselves at the border. And President Biden has pledged to take in 100,000 Ukrainians over the next several years.

In 2019, Francia Marquez survived an assassination attempt by men wielding firearms and grenades – an attack that came on the heels of a string of death threats against the award-winning Colombian environmentalist. Now, three years later, she could become the first Afro-Colombian vice president – a historic development in a country where politics has traditionally been the domain of wealthy white men. She was tapped for the position by leftist presidential candidate Gustavo Petro, widely viewed as the frontrunner in the upcoming May election. Marquez has focused her campaign on the need for economic investment in conflict zones, environmentalism, and ensuring implementation of Colombia’s 2016 peace accord. She has vocally opposed the drug wars in Colombia, known as the world’s most dangerous country for environmental defenders.

Central America’s Forgotten History explores how “struggles over historical memory” “can be very political” in the countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Chomsky begins with dispelling “the Black Legend” “that serves to cover up some more inconvenient similarities, contrasts, and connections between British and Spanish colonialism.” The author seeks “to find clues as to what some of the invisible, unheard voices hidden within them might have to say.” Central America’s Forgotten History is a thesis on what today’s America forgot or never knew about the history that drives emigration from Central America. As such, Chomsky omits some history in this concise book while more recent relevant events receive more attention.

Haitian Bridge Alliance v. Biden, a pending federal class action lawsuit, asserts that the U.S. government’s actions at Del Rio were part of a larger strategy that was intentionally designed to send a message of deterrence to other Black immigrants: the United States will not protect you and will deport you back to danger. To perpetrate these human rights abuses, the U.S. used the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext. Invoking an obscure public health statute called Title 42, the Biden Administration fully embraced a Trump-era policy that claimed the unprecedented authority to prevent the entry into the country of people seeking humanitarian protection. Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and the Haitian Bridge Alliance have released a new report unveiling the full scope of the abuses that occurred in Del Rio, Texas, and in some cases are ongoing.

In a historic advance, the Inter-American Development Bank has designed a responsible exit plan to accompany their divestment from two controversial large dams in the Yichk'isis micro-region of Guatemala. The Bank’s decision stems from a complaint affected Mayan communities filed in 2018 before the IDB Group's Independent Consultation and Investigation Mechanism. In resolving the complaint, the accountability office concluded that IDB Invest failed to comply with the bank’s operational policies and safeguards in the framework of project financing, and opened the possibility of a withdrawal of investment. Affected Mayan communities celebrate the decision, while acknowledging that the Bank has several challenges left to confront.

The LGTBIQ community in Honduras demanded Monday the approval of a gender identity law and compliance with a ruling issued in 2021 by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CorteIDH), which condemns the State for the death of a transgender woman and activist. On the occasion of the International Day of Trans Visibility, which is celebrated every March 31, the lesbian, gay, trans, bisexual, intersex and queer (LGTBIQ) collective in Honduras requested in a statement to the Government of Honduras to address the needs of transgender people. Trans people face daily "situations of violation of rights, stigmatization, discrimination, violence and hate crimes because of their gender identity and expression", according to LGTBIQ organizations.

The LGTBIQ community in Honduras demanded Monday the approval of a gender identity law and compliance with a ruling issued in 2021 by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CorteIDH), which condemns the State for the death of a transgender woman and activist. On the occasion of the International Day of Trans Visibility, which is celebrated every March 31, the lesbian, gay, trans, bisexual, intersex and queer (LGTBIQ) collective requested in a statement to the Government of Honduras to address the needs of transgender people. Trans people face daily "situations of violation of rights, stigmatization, discrimination, violence and hate crimes because of their gender identity and expression", according to LGTBIQ organizations.

This blog post comes from Celina Lima, the newest Fair Trade Campaigns fellow who is studying International Development and Social Enterprise at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS). This summer, she travelled to Guatemala and Nicaragua as a fellow for our organization, to learn about coffee cooperatives and how Fair Trade Community Development Funds affect their members’ livelihoods. The following is the first of a series of blog posts of Celina’s journeys to the mountains of Central America.