IRTF News

The ACLU said that more than 900 parents and children, including babies, have been separated by U.S. border authorities since U.S. District Judge Dana M. Sabraw, a George W. Bush appointee in San Diego, ordered the government to reunite more than 2,700 children with their parents more than a year ago. "It is shocking that the Trump administration continues to take babies from their parents," said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. "The administration must not be allowed to circumvent the court order over infractions like minor traffic violations."

Under U.S. and international law, the United States is obligated to hear asylum requests unless an alternative "safe third country" is stipulated through a bilateral agreement. Such a "safe third country" must provide security and due process for asylum seekers. Trump officials tried initially to pressure Mexico to sign a safe third country agreement, but the Mexican government balked, even as it capitulated to Trump's tariff threats and stepped up efforts to interdict Central American migrants. So, the Trump administration turned to strong-arming Guatemala.

Thousands take to streets in cities across Colombia demanding government action over the killing of social leaders.

This is urgent. Unless Congress legalizes the status of these immigrants (currently under a temporary protected status), they could be placed into deportation proceedings, tearing families apart.

"In these times there are those who cheerfully play a war drum without thinking that they put at risk the existence of themselves, I am sure that the American people want peace and justice," said President Daniel Ortega. The head of government said that, regardless of their political position, citizens want peace and economic stability in the midst of a reality that affects the world with so many wars, destruction and exploitation. "This celebration has allowed all of us here to carry a message of peace, resistance and unity to the Nicaraguan people," he said.

Routine dehumanization of the very people they’re tasked with helping....Prosecutors have revealed that the Border Patrol agent set to go on trial next month for running down a border crosser referred to immigrants as “mindless, murdering savages.” Border Patrol agents routinely call migrants or detainees “tonks,” a moniker that agents joke stems from the sound a detainee’s head makes when hit with a flashlight, and such racist terms even surface in the agency’s academy...Even today, recruiting ads continue to make the Border Patrol look like an action movie, with stirring music and fancy toys, from helicopters to canines to ATVs, and lots and lots of weapons. On CBP’s website, “counterterrorism” is listed first under the agency’s mission—ahead of “customs” and “immigration,” and the first item on the agency’s own job description for officers states a “typical assignment” is “detecting and preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States.” In its first sentence of the agency’s “About” listing, CBP says it “is charged with keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the U.S.” Nowhere in its recruiting material does it list anything having to do with “providing humanitarian assistance,” “rescuing migrants,” or “aiding families and children fleeing drug violence,” the tasks that have over the past 10 years have consumed more and more of the Border Patrol’s time.