El Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. The US-backed civil war, which erupted after the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980, lasted 12 years (1980-92), killing 70,000 people and forcing 20% of the nation’s five million people to seek refuge in the US.
Learn more here.
Support a historic shift in U.S. foreign policy. House Resolution 1056 calls for ending the Monroe Doctrine and building a “New Good Neighbor” relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean. Urge your US representative to co-sponsor this landmark resolution acknowledging two centuries of intervention and injustice.
A new Salvadoran film about the 1981 El Mozote massacre premiered with government backing, sparking controversy for downplaying state responsibility while promoting the country’s security image. At the same time, survivors won a historic step toward justice as the long-stalled massacre case advanced toward trial after decades of impunity.
This op-ed recently published in Cleveland.com by Dr Gina Pérez, a cultural anthropologist and professor of Comparative American Studies at Oberlin College, examines a rethoric weaponized by structures of power to defame the ones they murder. She highlights parallels between the Reagen administration's reaction to the assasination of four women missioners who were murdered in El Salvador in December 1980 and the current administration's response to the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
If the rhetoric of Jeane Kirkpatrick, a top foreign policy adviser to President Reagan, sounds familiar ("the nuns were not just nuns; the nuns were also political activists"), it's because we're hearing it again in the discrediting trash-talk from the White House aboutu Renee Good and Alex Pretti ("domestic terrorists").
The hardline approach to violence, a model used by President Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, is gaining increasing support in Central America, a region that has been historically plagued by insecurity, whether related to gangs or drug trafficking.
Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Honduras are three countries that have adopted measures similar to those implemented by the Salvadoran leader, despite the criticism he receives from human rights organizations.
A sharp reflection on how U.S. officials have long responded to state violence by blaming the dead—-from the murder of churchwomen in El Salvador to the killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE—-and a warning that such lies can only hold for so long.
Leaders like Daniel Ortega and Nayib Bukele turn people’s bodies—whether prisoners, supporters, or critics—into tools of control, using public shows of loyalty and punishment to prove their power. These choreographed images of marches, prisons, and masked forces update old colonial methods of repression, turning fear and spectacle into a new style of “strongman”.
More than 150 faith-based organizations from 25 countries launched an open letter on supporting an El Salvadoran ban on metals mining that was overturned by right-wing President Nayib Bukele in 2024.
“We stand in solidarity with civic and religious leaders who are being persecuted and imprisoned for working against injustices, including the devastation that metals mining would cause their communities.”
Do you and your neighbors and co-workers know what to do if visited, questioned, or arrested by ICE? Do you know you can call the Ohio Immigration Hotline 419-777-HELP (4357) ? There’s also the Ohio National Lawyers Guild Hotline: (614) 654-6477
You can stay up-to-date every day on ICE activities, trends in apprehensions and detentions by following Austin Kocher on Substack https://substack.com/@austinkocher/posts
In northeast Ohio, you can reach out to irtf@irtfcleveland.org for educational resources and trainings for your workplace, congregation, or community group.
Consider your position in your community. What can you contribute to undocumented community members or migrant organizations?
Do you know any legal, mental health, social work professionals?
What about school employees?
We need EVERYONE to consider how they can mobilize support for vulnerable migrant families.
If you yourself don’t hold a professional position that is needed, consider this: Could serve as a first-call, point person for someone who is detained? Reach out to them to initiate a supportive conversation. Are you positioned to do child pick-up and safeguarding? Well-connected with community orgs or professionally situated to help with legal, medical or other needs?
See the attached flyer for more resources and ways to get involved.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ vote and new national campaign to support migrants are the group’s first responses to the Trump administration’s crackdown.
In a rare group statement, America’s Catholic bishops voted nearly unanimously Wednesday to condemn the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants as an attack on “God-given human dignity,” and advocated for “meaningful reform of our nation’s immigration laws.”
“We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people. We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement,” read the message from the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops. After the vote (216-5, with three abstentions), the bishops stood and applauded. The last such “Special Message” was delivered 12 years ago.
The new message listed the types of suffering the church leaders say many undocumented migrants experience, including “arbitrarily” losing their legal status, being subject to poor detention conditions, and being afraid to take children to school or go to church. “We feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity,” the bishops wrote.
