The News Roundup is a regular section of the blog, featuring 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.
‘Trump Effect’ Wears Off as Migrants Resume Their Northward Push
Many factors, including the Central American economy and gang violence, play a role in migration patterns. But it also appears that any deterrent effect of Mr. Trump’s tough talk and ramped-up immigration enforcement has begun to wane. In interviews, volunteers and lawyers along the border say that migrants and smugglers have stopped lying low, deciding that trying to get a foothold in a well-off and safe country was no riskier than in the past.
Why 2017 was so terrible for Mexico: 8 essential reads
So, to commemorate the end of a very bad year, here are seven articles that lay out why 2017 was so terrible for Mexico — plus one slightly rosier perspective.
Political Manipulation Could Taint Selection of Guatemala’s Next Attorney General
Postulation commissions are an arcane but important mechanism in Guatemalan politics, as they are used to choose candidates for a number of top judicial posts. For this reason, they are also ripe for corruption and manipulation. In the case of the forthcoming postulation commission, which will select a group of candidates that will include the country’s next attorney general, the stakes for corrupt elites are high. If they can ensure that the commission will choose a friendly slate of nominees, they may be able to avoid the fate of Pérez Molina, who is currently in jail while the trial against him proceeds.
Dirty Elections in Honduras, with Washington’s Blessing
The remilitarization of Honduras has accompanied a free-for-all for Honduras’s wealthiest families and for international investors, under the slogan “Honduras is Open for Business.” State security forces have been deployed in areas with “social conflicts” linked to mining, agro-industrial, hydroelectric, and tourism enterprises that displace or negatively impact communities, and which are often illegally carried out without prior consultation of local indigenous groups, as required under Honduran law. As human rights advocates have reported, they often act in tandem with private security agents to terrorize communities into submission through targeted killings and attacks.
El Salvador: End of TPS Will Challenge Government and Society
Ending TPS for Salvadorans casts a shadow of uncertainty over the lives of 200,000 law-abiding, tax-paying migrants – half of whom have lived in the United States for more than 20 years and a third of whom have homes with mortgages, according to estimates. That same uncertainty extends to TPS beneficiaries’ families, which include 192,000 U.S. citizen children. The Salvadoran government’s statement dodges the key issues of whether it can accommodate the influx of returnees and the loss of a significant portion of the roughly $4.5 billion (equivalent to 17 percent of El Salvador’s GDP) they send home each year. There is no evidence that it can provide even basic protection for the returnees. The Foreign Ministry’s unctuous thanks for Washington’s “extension” of TPS until the Salvadorans lose their status in 18 months suggests a mysterious confidence that the U.S. Congress will carve out exceptions for its compatriots in the United States. However desirable that scenario might be, there’s precious little evidence that the U.S. legislature’s current leaders, who have shown support for most of Trump’s anti-migrant agenda, will help avoid the train wreck that Trump has now set in motion.
Why is El Salvador so dangerous? 4 essential reads
Immigration advocates have condemned the move, saying it overlooks El Salvador’s extreme violence, which has surged since the Bush administration first offered Salvadorans protective status. With 81.2 murders per 100,000 people in 2016, El Salvador is the deadliest place in the world that’s not a war zone. More than 5,200 people were killed there in 2016. How did El Salvador become so violent? These four articles shed some light on the country’s complex crime problem. Spoiler: It’s not just about the gangs.
Judges in Nicaragua learn to see the world through the eyes of vulnerable women
Violence against women and girls is tragically commonplace. In Nicaragua, nearly 40 per cent of women have experienced violence from a partner or ex-partner, according to a 2011-2012 survey. Yet in this country and elsewhere, women and girls are blamed for their own vulnerabilities – and even their own victimization. Girls who become pregnant are often thrown out of the home or economically abandoned, as Michelle was. But a legal education programme is working to change these attitudes among those with power: judges, magistrates and legal advisers.
Nearly two months after the massacre, no one has been publicly held responsible. The police inspector general has completed an investigation and passed it on to a judge, who could order the arrest or dismissal of officers involved. One police officer accused of involvement is already missing, according to the inspector general. Families of nine victims, including those of the two police officers, received a one-time payment of about $1,500 for funeral expenses. But none of the intellectual authors of the botched raid appear to have been identified or questioned.
A Colombian Rebel Group Resumes Attacks After Cease-Fire Ends
Colombia’s fragile peace was shaken on Wednesday as the National Liberation Army, a guerrilla group known as the ELN, attacked a military base and an oil pipeline just hours after a 102-day cease-fire ended, the government said. While no deaths were reported, the attacks underscored the steep challenges Colombia faces as it tries to negotiate a peace deal with the ELN similar to the one that it signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in 2016.
Lessons on heart disease from the jungles of Bolivia
The results of this study seem to contradict basic assumptions of the mechanisms that cause coronary artery disease. Much of our efforts to combat heart disease involve prescribing cholesterol-lowering drugs, and inflammation is thought to be another major contributing factor. Lowering cholesterol levels would not help the Tsimane, and their intestinal parasites cause lots of inflammation. This study suggests that there is still a lot that we do not know about how heart disease develops.