Excmo. Sr. Presidente Iván Duque Márquez
President of the Republic of Colombia
Sr. Fiscal General Fabio Espitia Garzón
Attorney General of Colombia
November 13, 2019
Dear Sirs:
We are shocked at the violent attacks on several indigenous people in less than a week in the Nasa Tacueyo reservation in Corinto, Cauca Department. Twelve were murdered, an assassination attempt on another, and others injured.
A major piece of President Donald Trump's immigration policy is set for a showdown in the U.S. Supreme Court after the lower courts rejected the attempt to phase-out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA. The program allows undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children to temporarily stay through a two-year work permit. Supporters of DACA say there are about 700,000 recipients nationwide, and about 4,500 in Ohio. President Trump made the decision to phase-out the program in September 2017. He argues that it was created illegally under President Barack Obama's executive order and that it should be created by law through Congress.
This November (16th and 17th) the InterReligious Task Force on Central America and Colombia will be traveling—with 50 of our closest friends—to Fort Benning Georgia. Those of you who know IRTF well will know that we have been speaking out against the practices taking place at Ft. Benning, but for those who are less familiar, let me fill you in.
Outgoing Department of Homeland Security head Kevin McAleenan plans to announce during a trip to Central America this week the reinstatement of foreign aid that President Trump previously demanded be withheld, according to government documents obtained by the Washington Examiner. McAleenan, the acting secretary of DHS, is slated to formally announce the United States is reinstating roughly $150 million in aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The forthcoming aid is primarily through Defense and State Department programs that support newly signed agreements McAleenan has recently entered with leaders from each of the three countries. The deals focus on addressing surges in recent years in the number of people from countries other than Mexico arriving at the southern border, as well as the underlying causes prompting hundreds of thousands to leave since last October.
Hundreds of migrants from Africa, the Caribbean and Central America found themselves corralled in a migrant detention facility in southern Mexico on Sunday after a futile attempt to head north as part of a caravan aiming to reach the United States. Just before dusk, after having trudged more than 20 miles north, they were surrounded by hundreds of National Guard agents and police who persuaded the exhausted migrants to board vans back to Tapachula. Children cried, and women complained angrily about waiting months for papers. It was unclear if any would be deported.
