Anti-Militarism: News & Updates

This article details how the second Trump administration's mass deportation campaign has dramatically increased the detention and removal rates of immigrants who entered the U.S. as unaccompanied minors, often rolling back legal protections previously granted to them. Through the lens of 18-year-old Elder Chavez and other detained youth, it highlights the rapid-fire deportation orders in immigration courts, the harsh conditions within detention centers, and the growing pushback from federal judges and legal advocates.

June 21 marks National Day Against Forced Disappearance in Guatemala, honoring the estimated 45,000 people who were disappeared by the State during the Internal Armed Conflict. This year, NISGUA accompanied a commemoration organized by Genocide Never Again Coordination, a network of organizations that includes the Association of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared in Guatemala (FAMDEGUA, by its Spanish acronym), Mutual Aid Group (GAM),  Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice and Against Erasure and Silence (HIJOS), and the Center for Legal Action in Human Rights (CALDH), among others. Volunteers set up 450 chairs in Plaza de Las Niñas, Guatemala City’s large, central public square directly in front of the Presidential Palace. Taped to each chair was a picture of one of the disappeared, as well as a flower. Throughout the event, all 450 pairs of photographed eyes were trained on the Palacio Nacional—a powerful reminder of the Guatemalan state’s’culpability in the repression of its own citizens.

On June 4th, the community of Copal AA La Esperanza invited NISGUA to participate in their annual Mother Earth Festival—a day to celebrate the soil, water and forest that sutain their livelihoods and to explicitly reject the corporate interests that exploit them.

Under the heat of the morning sun, more than 600 people marched from the permanent resistance in Casillas to a rally and Catholic mass in the center of town to honor the anniversary of resistance against the Escobal mine, currently owned by Canadian corporation Pan-American Silver. Volunteers from the communities surrounding the mine have served 24 hour shifts on a rotating basis for the past nine years monitoring fuel quantity and movement in the region, in order to ensure the mine remains out of operation. While this was the 9th anniversary of the resistance, the struggle against the mine began 18 years ago, marked by criminalization, repression, denial of the existence of the Xinka people, and violence against land and water defenders.

This Wola article is reviewing notable legal victories across the Americas: Mexico, Colombia and Brazil that show a positive trend of improved recognition about gender and sexuality based violence in those counteries... 

Rev. Melanie Oommen who is he Minister for Committee on Ministry Development and Leadership with the Ministerial Excellence, Support and Authorization (MESA) Team in the National Ministries of the United Church of Christ is expressing her distress over the Supreme court decision from June 25 that courts should have no say in issues regarding the elongation or cancellation of Temporary porotected status, and wehat consquences that will have on th multicultural nature of the united church of christ's local congregations.  

This article written by Jake Johnson reviewing the upscaling of ICE arrersts throughout the last week dismantles the White House claims to be targeting the “worst of the worst,”. Examplifying with available data with dtention cases such as the detention of a 56 year old kenyan nun on her way to church.

New analysis and firsthand accounts reveal the toll of the crackdown on immigrant communities in L.A. County and beyond. Thousands of people detained during the height of the raids remain in immigration custody or have already been deported.

This article by the American Immigration Council serves as a comment criticizing deliberate DHS practices deterring immigrants from going the legal route of seeking asylum at official ports of entry. The practice most elaborately explored here that goes by the name of 'metereing', in which customs officers would stand at the border line and physically block arriving migrants from stepping onto U.S. soil, is here being explained as on one hand deliberate in its purpose for agency's like CBP and on the ortgher hand crucial in its consequences, pushing immigrants trying to immigrate in the most lawful way possible into migration between points of entry.  

One week after the Colombian elections, Community Peacemaker Teams met with local leadership in El Guayabo to collectively reflect on emerging risks, evaluate past strategies, and adapt their approach to defending their territory. Despite the exhausting challenges of ongoing resistance, the community drew strength from their shared experience, international support, and mutual care, reaffirming that their collective organization is what keeps hope and resilience alive.