IRTF News

On El Salvador’s Independence Day, about 1,500 activists marched in San Salvador demanding the release of political prisoners and denouncing arbitrary arrests under President Bukele’s gang crackdown. The event highlighted tensions between the government’s tough security policies and human rights concerns that affect daily life for locals and visitors alike.

The BIA is the appellate body that reviews immigration judge decisions, and when it designates a decision as precedential, like Yajure Hurtado [ a migrant from Venezuela who entered the US in November 2022],  its reasoning is binding on all immigration judges unless a federal court says otherwise. This means that in immigration courts across the country, thousands of detained immigrants who were eligible for a bond hearing last week now have no recourse to be released during their immigration court proceedings unless they file—and win—a federal lawsuit.

Five members of the Indigenous Garifuna communities of Trujillo and Sante Fe are being prosecuted for defending their ancestral lands; their names are Cesia Guillén, Cindy Fernández, Gilma Bernárdez, Luis Calderón, and Cesar Geovanny Bernárdez. All of the defendants are members of the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH), an organization that has been helping the Garifuna in their fight to defend collective property. 

The defendants have been unjustly accused of forced displacement and aggravated usurpation by Dagoberto Castillo Castillo and Niobi Constantinidi Padilla. Castillo claims to be a bona fide purchaser of a property in the San Antonio area of Santa Fe Colón, despite the fact that the Garifuna people hold its property title dating back to 1882. Their fight is supported by a report from the National Agrarian Institute (INA), indicating that the land is located within Garifuna ancestral territory and that its sale is void.

This state-backed legal attack is part of a systematic act of dispossession against Garifuna communities. Central to its execution has been the repression of land defense movements through deliberate criminalization and persecution of those leading the defense of their ancestral homes. 

The courthouse in Trujillo, which is now effectively dedicated to the persecution of the Garífuna people, was built on Garifuna territory. The initial hearing for the five defendants was held there on August 11.

A corrupt government gutted the public electricity utility and doled out shady contracts. Now the state faces multibillion-dollar lawsuits for attempting to reclaim control.
This report uncovers how solar energy projects affect local comunities, the states econmy, it's sovereignity and how Investors use neo0cololonial means to foster their interests. 

As government human rights reporting becomes less comprehensive, historian Elliott Young's applied scholarship fills critical information gaps with rigorously documented country conditions research.

Earlier today I had the opportunity to speak with historian Elliott Young from Lewis and Clark University’s Migration & Asylum Lab and recent graduate Soraya Talbot-Kerry about their work producing country conditions reports, essential resources that serve everyone involved in the immigration system. These meticulously researched, non-partisan reports provide critical information for immigration judges, attorneys, ICE prosecutors, advocacy organizations, and the general public who need accurate, objective data about conditions in countries around the world.

You can listen to this one-hour interview between Austin Kocher and researchers at the Migration & Asylum Lab here.