IRTF News

For more than four decades, IRTF has welcomed dozens of interns who have helped carry forward our mission of promoting peace, human rights and systemic transformation across the Americas. Each year, our interns enter the living legacy of IRTF: never-ending advocacy, organizing, and accompaniment. Their experiences, like those of Lucia and Maddie, remind us of the importance of this work and of forming the next generation of justice seekers.

Maddie: As a small organization and a tight-knit community, IRTF’s support is direct. This summer, we accompanied migrants to their immigration hearings, speaking with them in a mix of broken English and Spanish, learning their stories and offering them support and companionship. We connected with other community groups to learn how we could best inform local migrant and refugee families through Know Your Rights training. We challenged our own comfort and security by attempting to take on the fear and uncertainty faced by the migrant community.

Lucia: IRTF has been an indispensable part of discerning the world I want to live in, the role I will have in that, and the way I hope to go about it. This haven of social justice, activism, and human-centered civic engagement has become the foundation on which I hope to build a lifetime of advocacy and purposeful action.

Please read more from the reflections of student interns Maddie and Lucia.

Support a historic shift in U.S. foreign policy—House Resolution 1056 calls for ending the Monroe Doctrine and building a “New Good Neighbor” relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean. Urge your Representative to co-sponsor this landmark resolution acknowledging two centuries of intervention and injustice. 

This article presents 3 OHIO art projects, communicating political messaging through artistic expression. Among those projects is Art by APE Bleakney an IRTF Board member, blending her social advocacy and community engagement with her art. Her recent series of silkscreen posters directly confront ICE imagery, with several anti-ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) posters as protest art. (proceeds  donated to immigration support organizations

This article by ProPublica examines the special treatment enjoyed by convicted then pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, former President of Honduras, who was imprisoned for accepting bribes and allowing traffickers to export more than 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S.

This piece highlights five recent in-depth reports that use original data and investigative research to reveal how U.S. immigration enforcement, detention, and deportation systems are expanding and shifting in practice. It argues that careful, expert-driven analysis-—rather than headline news—-offers the clearest view of who is being targeted, how enforcement works, and who profits from it.

Progressive leaders from 20 countries met in Bogotá for the Nuestra América convening, adopting a joint declaration to coordinate resistance to U.S. coercive policies and defend sovereignty and self-determination across the Americas. The gathering launched a new hemispheric alliance of governments, unions, and social movements committed to collective action and international solidarity.

ICE’s detention system is expanding at an unprecedented pace, with 237 facilities now detaining migrants.  Making sense of that expansion requires making the limited data ICE releases publicly accessible and understandable. That means tools that turn spreadsheets into insight, that make facility-level information accessible to reporters on deadline, researchers conducting analysis, and advocates tracking conditions on the ground.DetentionReports.com, a public tool tracking ICE detention facilities, has launched major upgrades including an interactive national map, new comparison graphs, and an archive of ICE detention contracts.