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Join IRTF on Friday, August 7 as we gather lots of IRTF friends at our annual Summer Solidarity Social. Join us for live music, spoken word, light refreshments, reports from IRTF staff and friends, including updates on local campaigns for liberation.
Special Guest from San Salvador: Leslie Schuld from CIS (Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad)
On February 7, 2024, President Arévalo signed the Acuerdo Agrario (Agrarian Agreement) with Indigenous and rural farmer (campesino) organizations, committing his administration to resolving agrarian conflicts, improving access to land, strengthening campesino communities, and establishing a permanent dialogue space between the government and campesino organizations. More than two years have passed without meaningful compliance. The Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC) and the Highland Peasant Community (CCDA) have made repeated attempts to engage the government, including an open letter in May 2025, an emergency meeting in August 2025, a written request for an urgent hearing in November 2025, and a direct request for an audience submitted on March 13, 2026—all without a response. On May 7, 2026, the CUC filed a writ of amparo against President Arévalo for his failure to respond within the 30 business days required by Article 28 of the Guatemalan Constitution.
We are urging authorities to: (1) immediately halt extrajudicial evictions and ensure that any court-ordered evictions comply with international human rights standards protecting rural farming communities and (2) fulfill the commitments of the February 7, 2024, Agrarian Agreement, including establishing a functioning permanent dialogue speech with Indigenous and campesino organizations.
The harms caused by metallic mining are well-known to the communities of Panzos, Livingston, and El Estor in the Maya Q’eqchi’ region of the Sierra Santa Cruz mountain range. For sixty years, they have been exposed to the pollution caused by the El Fénix nickel mine in El Estor: contaminating Lake Izabal and other local water sources, threatening fishers’ source of income. Because of their outspoken opposition, residents have been unjustly criminalized and many the victims of land grabbing, arson, and repression. It was finally in December 2023 when the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that the government of Guatemala is responsible for human rights violations (threats, assaults, killings) and ordered reparation measures.
It is deeply concerning that after a three-year suspension of mining activities, Canada-based Central America Nickel (CAN) resumed operations at El Fénix in May 2026. We urge authorities to:
(1) suspend Fénix Nickel's operations in El Estor until a free, prior, and informed consultation is conducted in compliance with the 2023 Inter-American Court ruling
(2) stop review and approval of Rio Nickel, S.A.’s pending licenses in Livingston until necessary Q'eqchi' community consultation has taken place, (as required by national and international law, the ILO Convention 169)
(3) ensure accountability for officials connected to the corruption and bribery in regard to the mining operations
Nayib Bukele’s El Salvador welcomes tourists with open arms while ruthlessly imprisoning its own people.
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 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.
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.
