Migration tests Biden administration (March 22, 2021)

News Briefs

Migration

• U.S. President  Joe Biden is facing an early "political and moral test over how his government treats thousands of migrant children who make the dangerous journey to America alone," reports the Guardian. The current surge in migrants at the U.S. border "shows how Biden’s determination to break from Trump’s harsh, nativist crackdown in favour of a more compassionate approach has collided with the reality of finite resources and a broken system."

• The belief that the end of the Trump administration has opened the border has spread throughout the region alongside another rumor, that young children are the ticket in, reports the Los Angeles Times. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas said last week that U.S. agents are on pace to intercept more migrants on the southwest border in 2021 than they have in the last 20 years. Though most are single adults, there has been an uptick in the number of children making the trip. (See last Tuesday's post.)

• Mexico has launched new measures to deter illegal crossings at its southern border with Guatemala, including posting militarized police and using drones to monitor entry points, reports Reuters. (See Friday's post.)

• Mexican authorities stopped three trucks packed with 329 migrants near the Guatemalan border last week, including 114 unaccompanied minors. (Reuters)

• A group of 149 migrants were deported from the U.S. by surprise last week, reports the New York Times: "most had crossed into the United States from Reynosa, a border city in northern Mexico, where they had been detained by U.S. Border Patrol officers. They were then flown 600 miles to El Paso, Texas, where they were put on buses, driven to the border and walked to the bridge. None were informed they were being sent back into Mexico."

• The Guatemalan town of Comitancillo has become emblematic of the grim circumstances that push many migrants to attempt the perilous journey to the United States -- and of the risks they face. Thirteen migrants from the town were part of a group massacred in Mexico in January. (New York Times, see last Thursday's briefs.)

Brazil

• Brazil's government has increasingly deployed a dictatorship-era national security law against critics -- both prominent ones and ordinary citizens, reports the Associated Press. The 1983 law states it is a crime to harm the heads of the three branches of government or expose them to danger. That vague definition has recently been used to detain or investigate critics of President Jair Bolsonaro: federal police have conducted more than 80 investigations under the security law during Bolsonaro’s first two years, and more than 10 in the first 45 days of 2021.

• Bolsonaro renewed his attacks on Covid-19 stay-at-home measures ordered by mayors and governors. "Some tyrants out there are trying to restrict your freedom," he said. "You can count on our armed forces to defend your freedom and democracy." (AFP)
  

Honduras

• Honduras is critical for the United States on issues of migration and fighting organized crime, but Washington's unilateral strategies have failed. It's time to seek multilateral options, argues Carlos Dada in a New York Times Español op-ed. The U.S. doesn't have an interlocutor in Tegucigalpa, not just because of grave accusations of wrongdoing against President Juan Orlando Hernández, but because the "entire system is rotten." While Hernández's mandate ends next January, "extirpating drug trafficking from the Honduran government will be much harder."

• Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández accepted bribes from a drug trafficker as recently as 2019 — not just while running for office years earlier -- according to a U.S. prosecutor who spoke at the closing arguments of the trial of accused Honduran drug trafficker Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez in New York on Friday. The trial has been marked with repeated allegations linking Hernández to drug trafficking, accusations the president has denied. (Associated Press) 

• Honduras has become a terrifying case study in what results when climate change, government failure, gang violence, and natural disaster collide, reports the New York Review of Books.
  

• More than 100 members Honduras' Tolupán indigenous community in Honduras have been killed defending the tribe's land from indiscriminate deforestation, reports El País.

Colombia

• Environmentalists in Colombia are fast becoming almost as endangered as the species they strive to protect, reports the Washington Post.

• The Raizal community on Providencia, a Colombian island in the Caribbean, said Colombia's Navy is using hurricane reconstruction tasks as cover for advancing projects on their territory, reports La Silla Vacía. Raizal leaders and advocates have warned that the destruction wrought by Hurricane Iota last year on the island could contribute to pushing the Afro-Caribbean community off their traditional lands. (See Just Caribbean Updates for March 18 and Dec. 16.)

Covid-19

• Mexican customs officials seized a shipment of 5,700 doses of fake Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccines headed for Honduras, reports the Associated Press. The Russian Direct Investment Fund said it could be an example of possible provocations aimed at discrediting the Sputnik vaccine.

Guyana

• Flaring at ExxonMobil's Liza Phase One operation in Guyana releases carbon equivalent to the destruction of thousands of acres of the country's forests, reports Kaieteur News

Venezuela

• Venezuela's opposition, led by Juan Guaidó who is recognized by the U.S. as the country's legitimate leader, said it would request Washington’s permission use funds frozen in U.S. accounts to pay for coronavirus vaccines. It is not clear, however, whether it will be able to reach a deal with Nicolás Maduro to import the vaccines, reports Reuters.

Argentina

• Argentina’s drug trafficking family clans are growing stronger as domestic cocaine and marijuana consumption rises, while trafficking networks now thrive in the country's border regions, according to a new InSight Crime in-depth investigation. At Argentina’s border zones, localized networks made up of corrupt police officers, judges and politicians facilitate the marijuana trade. While organized crime groups have been unable to infiltrate the state at a national level in Argentina, networks of political elites have been involved in money laundering schemes and taking bribes.
  

Regional Relations

• A U.S. Trump administration State Department official charged with playing a major role in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol had a history of praising Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship, reports Vice.
  

Ecuador

• Ecuador's presidential candidates debated yesterday, ahead of the April 11 run off vote. The discussion focused on the use of U.S. dollars as the national currency and its implications as well coronavirus vaccinations, reports Telesur.

Chile

• Chile has reported its highest daily count of new coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic despite widespread restrictions and widely praised progress on vaccinations, reports the Associated Press.
  

Costa Rica

• Costa Rican government efforts to cut public sector payroll costs, part of a $1.8 billion deal with the IMF, is bumping up against strong union opposition that could scuttle the whole loan agreement, reports Bloomberg.

Paleontology

• A new generation of paleontologists seeks to change scientific practices that descend directly from 19th century colonialism -- implementing cooperation with local communities and national researchers, reports the New York Times.

Did I miss something, get something wrong, or do you have a different take? Let me know ...

Latin America Daily Briefing