The News Roundup is a regular feature of the blog where we select news articles from various sources around the web, with the goal of providing an overview of the weekly conversation about the countries where MCC works in the region. Quotes in italics are drawn directly from sources and do not necessarily reflect the position of MCC.
As Perez and his CLO colleague David Hodges explained this, the Border Patrol agent backed his F-150 truck into the wash where he continued to keep an eye on us. This suspicion is only the most palpable tension between cross-border ecological restoration and one of the most militarized borders on the face of the earth. When sharing resources or doing measurements, what should be a five-minute walk to your neighbors turned into a 50-mile drive through a distant port of entry. Both border militarization and ecological restoration are two distinct responses to the most challenging ecological crisis of our time: the changing climate. In this microcosm along a remote area of border, these two contrasting visions might just embody the future struggles of the world. As the Trump administration takes office with promises of hyper-racialized border building, you could say what I saw that day on this ranch was a tale of two walls—one about restoration, and the other about exclusion.
Born in a cell: The families stranded at the US border
Family unit apprehensions reached a five-year high of 77,674 in the last fiscal year, according to US government figures, almost double the previous year’s total of 39,838. Arrivals of unaccompanied children rose by nearly 50 percent . The vast majority came from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the so-called Northern Triangle, where murder rates are among the highest in the world. The previously quiet crossing of El Paso, which is in far western Texas and at the centre of the 2,000-mile US-Mexico frontier, has seen one of the most dramatic increases. Refugees have typically favoured eastern border crossings such as McAllen and Brownsville, which are closer to Central America; but in the past federal year family apprehensions in the El Paso sector soared by 364 percent .
Second winner of environmental prize killed months after Berta Cáceres death
Isidro Baldenegro López, a subsistence farmer and leader of the Tarahumara community in the country’s northern Sierra Madre mountain region, was shot at a relative’s home on Sunday. Baldenegro received the Goldman prize in 2005 for his non-violent campaign to protect ancient forests from deforestation in a region plagued by violence, drug trafficking and corruption. According to local reports the indigenous leader, who was in his 50s, had only recently returned to his communityColoradas de la Virgen in Chihuahua after a long period in exile due to threats against him and his family. Baldenegro’s murder is yet another grave reminder of the dangers faced by environmental and land activists in the region.
The Guatemalan Towns Plastered With Icons of America
While the border is a physical delimiter, it’s also a psychological space, rich with connotations. Crossing from one side to the other means entering into a world stuffed with associations. The U.S. flag, for instance, is more than a constellation of lines and stars: the graphic comes to bear the weight of a promise. The icons that tend to adorn the walls of these reimagined homes are often the splashiest symbols of America, boiling things down to a visual language of “making it.” In one image, a woman holds a framed photograph of a crouching man superimposed over the Atlanta skyline. “Of course, you cannot make a skyscraper here, not for a house,” Aragón says. Instead, families might incorporate Nike or Apple logos into a design, or festoon the place with American flags. Some opt for mirrored windows, twinkling green or purple, like light glinting off faceted towers.
THE DEPORTEES TAKING OUR CALLS
Drawn by low operating costs, generous tax incentives, and proximity to the U.S., more than ten major call-center firms now operate in El Salvador, employing some twenty thousand people. Deportations from the U.S. have fuelled the industry by bringing an influx of English-speaking job-seekers. Anzora was one of twenty thousand Salvadorans deported in 2007. Since President Obama took office, in 2009, the U.S. has deported 2.7 million people, more than during any previous Administration. A hundred and fifty-two thousand of them are Salvadoran, and roughly twenty per cent have spent at least five years in the U.S. They generally speak fluent and idiomatic English—the most crucial requirement for call-center work. Their next most important quality is their desperation. Deportees are “very loyal,” a recruiter for a call center told the news service McClatchy. “They know they won’t get another shot.” At one call center I visited, more than half the employees had been deported from the U.S. Recruiters show up at an isolated hangar of the San Salvador airport to intercept deportees as they get off small jets flown in by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Costa Rica sues Nicaragua over military camp near border
Costa Rica filed a new complaint against Nicaragua before International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague on Monday, denouncing the presence of a military camp from the Nicaraguan army inside its territory, near the common border area. The Foreign Ministry stated in a news release that the camp is located on a beach at Portillos Island, a border territory that belongs to Costa Rica in an International Court of Justicie ruling issued on Dec. 16, 2015. Foreign Minister Manuel González noted that ICJ Justices, in their 2015 ruling, said that due to significant changes along the coastline over several decades, it is difficult to make a precise border delimitation at that location.
The Case for Haitian Reparations
And yet, the global response has been the same as usual: rather than examine how the complex intersections of history, politics, economics, and ecology conspire to make Haiti susceptible to natural disasters and epidemics, journalists, pundits, and NGO operatives instead shift blame onto Haitians themselves. They present Haitians as a people incapable of managing their nation. This view has guided the international response to Haiti since its independence two hundred years ago.
Husband and wife brutally murdered as attacks on Colombia’s community leaders continue
Such persecution against those who seek to defend the rights of their local communities has increased dramatically during the tenure of President Santos, with 534 political activists killed in between 2011 and 2016 according to statistics published by a British human rights NGO, Justice for Colombia (JFC). Despite comments from Colombia’s Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas sustaining last week that “there are no paramilitary groups in Colombia”, the killings have sparked outcry from leaders of rural human rights organizations who seek to see more guarantees given to community leaders and better protection from neo-paramilitary groups. The wave of persecution has also caught the attention of the UN, who last month published a report publicly condemning such violence and calling on the US and Colombian governments to work together in order to prevent further attacks from happening.
Malia Obama’s Secret Trip to Bolivia and Peru
Mr. Morales, an indigenous leader who gained prominence organizing coca leaf growers, expressed hope that Mr. Obama’s election would pave the way for more constructive relations between Washington and Latin American populist leaders. He repeatedly expressed interest in a meeting with Mr. Obama, but was rebuffed. Still, Mr. Morales seems to have welcomed the president’s daughter. “In spite of significant political differences with the Obama administration, he accepted the visit, understood the significance of the learning experience and respected Malia’s privacy,” Kathryn Ledebur, a Bolivia expert who is based in Cochabamba, said in an email. “It’s really an important precedent.”
Electric car boom fuels interest in Bolivia’s fragile salt flats
The country seems to be warming to international investment, however. In November last year, Luis Alberto Echazu, head of Bolivia’s national lithium company Comibol, announced he was in discussions with an unnamed Canadian company about setting up a lithium battery plant in the country. In a report on its website, Comibol said Tesla expressed an interest in building a plant in Bolivia. Industry observers suspect Pure Energy Minerals, a lithium supplier for Tesla, is the Canadian organisation in question. Sources have confirmed to the Guardian that Pure Energy Minerals is interested in the Bolivian lithium industry. Comibol and Tesla have not responded to requests for comment.
What is an example of the Trump administration promising hyper-racialized border building? This sounds like another incendiary remark intended to provoke fear rather than to build bridges of trust. It’s hard to imagine even Donnie making a campaign speech where he promises hyper racialization.
Let’s say ‘no’ to hate.