Anti-Militarism: News & Updates

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.

In the last few months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested immigrants at school, at work, in hospitals, and even at public protests. Since January, ICE has conducted more than 100,000 raids and between October 2024 and now, more than 158,000 immigrants have been deported. Families are faced with a terrible choice—leave their children behind in the U.S., or agree to their U.S. citizen child being deported as well.

Migrant detention has skyrocketed in the US, now approaching an unprecedented 60,000 in jail and prison cells. Benefiting: local county sheriffs (to fill empty cells in their jails) and for-profit prison companies. The  Administration is using no-bid contracts to expand detention. For example, the GEO group (which has been accused in numerous ongoing lawsuits of violating labor laws by paying detained immigrants extremely low wages to perform essential tasks for them, as well as unsanitary living conditions, restricting access to fresh air, and sexual abuse), just got a new contract with ICE to reopen an idle prison to hold 1,868 migrants—and earn $66 million in annual revenue.

Take Action.

Click here to tell the White House that detaining and deporting the people who keep our farms, restaurants, and infrastructure running is weakening the fabric of our society and is an affront to our moral and religious values. How are we a nation of “family values” if we are aggressively tearing families apart?

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Click here to urge your US congressperson to support H Res. 317 (with at least 21 co-sponsors) to lift up five common sense disarmament principles:  (1) Renounce the option of using nuclear weapons first;  (2) End any U.S. President’s ability to authorize a first strike nuclear attack;  (3) Take U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert;  (4) Cancel plans to replace the nation’s arsenal with new, enhanced weapons;  (5) Actively pursue a verifiable agreement among nuclear states to eliminate their arsenals

There are over 13,000 nuclear weapons on the planet, the majority of which are held by the United States and Russia. If even a fraction of these bombs were ever detonated, they would instantly kill millions and potentially trigger a global famine that could lead to the death of billions more. 

After 125 days behind bars, Arturo Suárez and the other detainees were freed on 18 July after a prisoner swap deal between Washington and Caracas. Since flying home to Venezuela, they have started to open up about their torment, offering a rare and disturbing glimpse of the human toll of President Nayib Bukele’s authoritarian crackdown in El Salvador and Trump’s campaign against immigration.

Suárez said conditions inside the maximum security prison were so dire he and other inmates considered killing themselves.

Noah Bullock, the head of the El Salvador-focused human rights group Cristosal, said activists had heard very similar accounts from prisoners in other Salvadoran jails, suggesting such terror tactics were not merely the behaviour of “bad apple prison guards”. “There’s clearly a culture coming from the leadership of the prison system to inculcate the guards into operating this way, [into] using dehumanising and physical abuse in a systematic way.”

A judge convicted seven former executives of Chiquita Brands in Colombia for sponsoring terrorism and sentenced them to 11 months in prison.

The former executives were responsible for Chiquita’s contributions totaling $1.7 million to paramilitary organization AUC between 1995 and 2004, said the Prosecutor General’s Office in a press statement.

Among those convicted are: John Paul Olivo (Comptroller of Chiquita Brands’ North America, who was the comptroller of Chiquita subsidiary Banadex between 1996 and 2001) and Charles Dennis Keiser (Chiquita’s operations chief in Colombia between 1987 and 2000).

The criminal proceedings in Colombia kicked off after Chiquita Brands pleaded guilty to terrorism-sponsoring in a U.S. federal court back in 2007 and was ordered to pay a $27 million fine.

Glencore is a global coal mining company based in Switzerland. It’s US-based subsidiary, Glencore USA LLC, is incorporated in Delaware. Glencore's U.S. operations (100% owned by Glencore) listed on its website includes 24 separate companies, including the company's New York headquarters on Madison Avenue. 

In Colombia, Glencore International is the 100% owner of several subsidiaries: C.I. Prodeco S.A., Carbones de la Jagua S.A., Carbones El Tesoro S.A., Consorcio Minero Unido S.A., Servicios Integrales de Cuidado y Mantenimiento Minero Ambiental S.A.S. (all in Barranquilla); Glencore Colombia SAS and Glencore Energy Colombia SAS (in Bogotá); and Sociedad Portuaria Puerto Nuevo S.A. (in Magdalena).

IRTF has been following the controversy around the Cerrejon Mine in Colombia for the past 20 years because of the negative impacts on local communities, including the Indigenous Wayúu in La Guajira Department (on the Atlantic coast and Venezuelan border). Cerrejon is Latin America’s largest open-pit coal mine. Once drinkable, the waters of the Ranchería River, now runs visibly dark.

Another layer of controversy is Glencore’s relationship with Israel. President Petro warned that if Glencore refuses to comply with the decree to suspend coal shipments to Israel, he would unilaterally alter its concession (permit) and would ask the local community near the mine to stage blockades.