Migration News Brief for August 2nd, 2024

Welcome to LAWG’s Migration News Brief, a compilation of recent top articles and reports related to issues of U.S. immigration and enforcement policy and migration from Central America and Mexico.

Spotlight

Senator Markey and Reps. Meng, Ramirez, Espaillat Introduce Destination Reception Assistance Act to Support Local Reception of New Arrivals
U.S. Senator Ed Markey (MA), July 30, 2024
“[T]he Destination Reception Assistance Act [would] expand the federal government’s role in the reception of new arrivals by establishing the Destination Reception Services Program, a new fund to promote self-sufficiency; reduce costs of extended emergency shelter; provide diversion from homelessness; and promote the effective navigation and compliance of the immigration process. The new program would complement the existing Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Shelter and Services Program that provides critical support such as food, water, shelter, and medical treatment to new immigrants following their release from the Department of Homeland Security.”

US Enforcement

Department of Labor, Office of the Trade Representative Reach Agreement with Mexican Government to Protect Labor Rights at Puebla Volkswagen Plant
U.S. Department of Labor, July 30, 2024
“The U.S. and Mexican governments today announced an agreement on a course of remediation at the Volkswagen vehicle assembly plant in Puebla, Mexico, in response to a petition filed under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s Rapid Response Labor Mechanism. The course of remediation seeks to ensure workers’ rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining are respected at the Volkswagen facility.”

Tax Payments by Undocumented Immigrants
Carl Davis, Marco Guzman, and Emma Sifre, Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, July 30, 2024
“Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Most of that amount, $59.4 billion, was paid to the federal government while the remaining $37.3 billion was paid to state and local governments.Undocumented immigrants paid federal, state, and local taxes of $8,889 per person in 2022…More than a third of the tax dollars paid by undocumented immigrants go toward payroll taxes dedicated to funding programs that these workers are barred from accessing.”

Trump Says He Wants to Deport Millions. He’ll Have a Hard Time Removing More People Than Biden Has.
Jack Herrera, Politico, July 28, 2024
“When Biden took office, he undid dozens of Trump’s immigration policies, but he kept in place Trump’s most consequential ban, the public health statute Title 42. Using the pandemic as pretext, Title 42 gave the president the power to rapidly expel migrants without the normal court process. During just his first two years in office, Biden used it to kick out over 2.8 million migrants…In Trump’s entire time in the White House, his administration removed only 2 million people total.”

Migrant apprehensions continue to decline in US
Quinn Owen, ABC News, July 25, 2024
“The Border Patrol has made fewer than 1,800 apprehensions per day over the past week, a major decline following the implementation of new asylum restrictions that significantly cut humanitarian protections for those who cross the border illegally. Migrant encounters along the southern border are down 55% since the restrictions took effect seven weeks ago, according to new data from the Department of Homeland Security.”

Treasury Targets Guatemalan Human Smuggling Organization for Illegal Transport of Migrants to the United States
U.S. Department of Treasury, July 25, 2024
“Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the Lopez Human Smuggling Organization (Lopez HSO), a transnational criminal organization (TCO) based in Guatemala. Human smuggling is a federal crime that includes bringing migrants into the United States illegally, as well as unlawfully transporting and harboring migrants already in the country. Working with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) components and other U.S. and foreign partners, OFAC sanctions aim to disrupt and ultimately dismantle these networks’ operations, which threaten the national security of the United States.”

Migrant caravan treks through Mexico, headed toward US border
Mills Hayes, NewsNation, July 23, 2024
“Hundreds of migrants have left southern Mexico in a caravan headed toward the United States border. Some have hopes of crossing before November’s election, fearing potential immigration policy changes Donald Trump might enact if reelected as president.”

Mexican Enforcement

Más allá de las fronteras: salud y seguridad en la era de la migración en México 
María Guadalupe Córdova Espinoza y Pedro Santiago Sánchez, Abogacía, 31 de julio de 2024
“Actualmente, el nuestro no sólo es un país de origen para muchos migrantes, sino también uno de tránsito y destino para otros, especialmente de Centroamérica. Este escenario requiere una mirada comprensiva y humanitaria que asegure el respeto y la dignidad de cada individuo en su jornada”. 

Instalan primer centro de carga de celulares para personas migrantes en Tijuana
Exilio MX, 30 de julio de 2024
“Las personas migrantes en Tijuana, Baja California, ya tienen la opción de recargar la batería de sus teléfonos celulares y establecer comunicación con sus familiares en sus países de origen. Esta nueva infraestructura forma parte de una alianza entre el Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM) de la Secretaría de Gobernación y la empresa AT&T México, quienes anunciaron la instalación del primer centro de carga para celulares en la estación El Chaparral, ubicada en Tijuana, Baja California”.

Sexenio de AMLO bate récord de detenciones de migrantes: casi medio millón en solo 5 meses
Manu Ureste, Animal Politico, 29 de julio de 2024
“En solo 5 meses, México detuvo a más migrantes que en 3 años, una cifra récord de casi medio millón de capturas, lo que contrasta con el número de deportaciones”.

México y Guatemala ofrecen asistencia humanitaria y consular a migrantes mexicanos que huyeron de la violencia en Chiapas
Carolina Carrasco, infobae, 27 de julio de 2024
“Luego de que cientos de mexicanos huyeran de la violencia que el crimen organizado provoca en Chiapas, los gobiernos de México y Guatemala informaron este sábado que se encuentran brindando ayuda humanitaria y consular a las personas desplazadas por esta situación”.

Mexico’s New President Faces Serious Security Challenges
Nathaniel Parish Flannery, Forbes, July 23, 2024
“Mexico’s president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, needs to confront Mexico’s cartels. She takes office on October 1, 2024…She faces a complicated and worsening set of security challenges and a difficult path forward. Her mentor, outgoing president [AMLO], a polarizing populist, struggled to improve security and reduce violent crime in Mexico. His six-year term in office from 2018 through 2024 is already marked as the most violent administration in modern Mexican history. Mexico has recorded over 193,000 murders since Lopez Obrador started his term in 2018.”

Root Causes 

Mexico

MULTI contabiliza 20 muertos del 2020 a la fecha en la región Triqui de Oaxaca
Pedro Parola, Cuarta Plana, 30 de julio de 2024
“Integrantes del Movimiento de Unificación y Lucha Triqui Independiente (MULTI), informaron que desde el 2020 a la fecha, alrededor de 20 de sus compañeros han sido asesinados en la región triqui de Oaxaca.”

More than 500 Mexicans flee to Guatemala to escape cartel violence in Chiapas
Thomas Graham, The Guardian, July 30, 2024
“The Mexican state of Chiapas was once a haven for Guatemalans fleeing genocide at home, but this historical relationship has recently flipped, with hundreds of Mexicans crossing the border to escape the violent tyranny of organised crime groups.”

Sheinbaum se compromete a seguir investigando desaparición de los 43 de Ayotzinapa
Informador.MX, 29 de julio de 2024
“Claudia Sheinbaum se comprometió a que la investigación de los 43 jóvenes desaparecidos de Ayotzinapa será un tema central en su administración, y que una vez que tome posesión se definirá el mecanismo para seguir con las pesquisas”.

Mexico and Guatemala coordinate humanitarian and consular assistance for the Mexicans in Cuilco, Huehuetenango
Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Gobierno de México, July 27, 2024
“Mexican and Guatemalan authorities are interviewing the Mexicans who crossed into Guatemala to offer them humanitarian and consular assistance and the option of a safe, voluntary return to Mexico.” 

AMLO’s Judicial Reform Overlooks the Key Weakness of Mexican Justice
Tyler Mattiace, Americas Quarterly, July 22, 2024
“In proposing his controversial plan to overhaul the court system, Mexico’s outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is right about one thing: for the majority of people, the country’s justice system isn’t working.”

The Avocado Mafia’s Grip on Mexico’s Lucrative Industry
Latin American Post, July 2024
“The recent assault on US avocado inspectors in Michoacán underscores the dangerous intersection of organized crime and agriculture in Mexico. This incident highlights the precarious nature of the avocado industry and its deep entanglement with violent cartels.”

Guatemala

Migrants say Guatemala is one of the most difficult parts of the journey
Doctors Without Borders, July 29, 2024
“MSF teams working in Guatemala have documented stories of violence and abuse against people on the move, among whom are an increasing number of families and children.”

Guatemala grants temporary residency to Mexican minors who fled violence
AP News, July 29, 2024
“Guatemala’s government announced Monday that it has given temporary residency to 207 Mexicans, mostly children, on humanitarian grounds, after they fled across the border last week to escape drug violence.”

CIDH a Guatemala: libere a personas defensoras de DD. HH.
DW, July 27, 2024
“La Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) instó este viernes (26.07.2024) al Ministerio Público (MP, Fiscalía) de Guatemala a que cese la “criminalización” contra jueces, abogados, periodistas, funcionarios y todas aquellas personas que luchen contra la corrupción”.

Actions of the Guatemalan Attorney General’s Office undermine the fight against corruption
María Josefina Arce, De Interés, July 23, 2024
“The recent visit to Guatemala by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, brought back to the table the persecution of judges, prosecutors and journalists who confront corruption by the Public Ministry, headed by Attorney General Consuelo Porras.”

Desnutrición crónica en Guatemala: “Uno de cada dos niños no tiene los nutrientes para que su cerebro se forme”
Angélica Gallón, El País, 20 de julio de 2024
“En los territorios más remotos de Guatemala, en sus zonas rurales de difícil acceso, las pequeñas tiendas que surten de alimentos a la población están llenas de refrescos azucarados y bolsas de colores vibrantes, con personajes famosos de la televisión, llenas de chips vacíos en nutrientes”.

El Salvador

Organizaciones denuncian más de 6,000 violaciones de derechos humanos en El Salvador
Telemundo de Washington D.C., 31 de julio de 2024
“Siete organizaciones no gubernamentales recibieron 6,426 denuncias hechas por víctimas de violaciones de derechos humanos bajo el régimen de excepción en El Salvador, una medida que forma parte de la política de mano dura del gobierno del presidente Nayib Bukele para combatir a las pandillas a las que responsabilizan de la mayoría de los crímenes cometidos en el país centroamericano”.

Según informe de Asociación de Periodistas se han registrado mas 400 vulneraciones al ejercicio de la profesión
Nodal, July 30, 2024
“El 31 de julio de 1969, a través de un decreto legislativo, se denominó “Día del Periodista de El Salvador” como un reconocimiento a la labor de los periodistas salvadoreños en la sociedad, pero este año no hay motivos de celebración, debido al aumento de vulneraciones al ejercicio periodístico, la falta de acceso a información pública y la censura”.

The Promise of Bitcoin City Displaces Conchagua
Nelson Rauda Zablah, El Faro, July 29, 2024
“If all goes according to the government’s plan, Condadillo will disappear. A new construction project, which the administration has baptized as “Bitcoin City”, will rise in its place. In November 2021, President Nayib Bukele announced his plans for a new, Bitcoin-based metropolis at a luxurious private beach party thrown mostly for U.S. and European crypto investors. Six months later, to international acclaim, he unveiled a theatrical golden model of a modern town with skyscrapers by the ocean.”

Honduras

Honduras: authorities should not lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility
OMCT, July 25, 2024
“Currently, Article 23 of the Penal Code of Honduras establishes the minimum age of criminal responsibility at 12 years of age…We recall that the Committee on the Rights of the Child, in its General Comment 24 of 2019, encourages States parties, such as Honduras, to ‘take note of the latest scientific findings and to raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years accordingly’.”

UN Human Rights Committee publishes findings on Croatia, Honduras, India, Maldives, Malta, Suriname, and Syria
UN Human Rights Committee, July 25, 2024
“The Committee reiterated its concern about the large scale of intimidation and violence and the high rates of killings of human rights defenders committed by both State agents and private individuals or groups. The Committee was also disturbed by the difficulties faced by victims in accessing justice, the lack of effective investigations, and the delays in judicial proceedings. ”

Invisible Borders and Gang Governance in Honduras
Fritz Pinnow, Talking Drugs, July 24, 2024
“People in the sector have learned to rely on the gang to resolve issues internally…While not visible to the naked eye, invisible borders exist between sectors: these are usually hot zones of mostly abandoned buildings. While not visibly marked, they are patrolled and guarded much like other borders, as they are often crossed by opposing members looking to spy, scout, and gather intelligence on other groups.”

Honduras: New threats against human rights defenders in Tocoa
OMCT, July 23, 2024
“Despite the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issuance of Precautionary Measures in October 2023, the Honduran government has failed to implement any measures, on behalf of the communities of Guapinol, San Pedro and Tocoa, or their advocates, all at great risk due to their opposition of the EMCO Holdings Pinares/Ecotek megaprojects, leaving the beneficiaries under a worsening situation and absolute lack of protection.”

Gender and LGBTQ+

En el Guelaguetza, mujeres demandan acciones urgentes contra la violencia
Informador.MX, 29 de julio de 2024
“Tras la protesta, el gobierno de Oaxaca informó que personal de la Secretaría de Gobierno atendió la protesta y que les ofreció encausar su petición a través de la Secretaría de las Mujeres”.

Mujeres y menores migrantes son los grupos más vulnerables frente a redes de trata de personas
Forbes México, 29 de julio 29 de 2024
“Naciones Unidas indica que la pobreza, el insuficiente apoyo a los menores no acompañados ante el aumento de los flujos migratorios y de refugiados, los conflictos armados, las familias desestructuradas y la falta de cuidados parentales son algunas de las razones que exponen a niños y niñas a riesgo de trata de personas”.

¡Alerta en Veracruz! Las Brujas del Mar exigen acción urgente ante la ola de desapariciones de mujeres
Agendamx, 28 de julio de 2024
“La colectiva feminista Las Brujas del Mar está sonando la alarma en Veracruz por un incremento devastador en las desapariciones de mujeres. En lo que va de 2024, se han reportado 394 casos, de los cuales 15 ocurrieron solo en julio. La situación ha generado una gran preocupación, pero las autoridades aún no han activado una tercera Alerta de Violencia de Género”.

IACHR Files Application Before Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Case Concerning Transfemicide of Leonela Zelaya in Honduras And Subsequent Impunity
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, July 26, 2024
“Leonela Zelaya’s life was full of gender-based violence and discrimination. At 34, she was a sex worker in Tegucigalpa and lived with Talía Rodríguez, whom she considered like a sister. In 2004, Zelaya was beaten up and injured by police officers. Soon after that incident, she was found dead on the street, and the subsequent investigation established that she had been stabbed.”

Climate + Environmental Displacement

América Latina y el Caribe, líder en biodiversidad global desde las personas
Alicia Montalvo, El País, July 31, 2024
“En América Latina y el Caribe…las comunidades indígenas salvaguardan el 80% de la biodiversidad del mundo y el 36% de los bosques intactos que quedan se encuentran en sus territorios. La región tiene seis de los países más megadiversos del mundo…y el hábitat con mayor biodiversidad del mundo; la selva amazónica, que acoge el 40% de la biodiversidad global, con una alarmante pérdida superior al 90% desde 1970.”

US Corporations Pump Aquifers Dry as Police Kill Water Defenders in Rural Mexico
David Bacon, Truthout, July 26, 2024
“On June 20, more than 200 angry farmers pulled their tractors into the highway outside the Carroll Farms feed plant in the Mexican town of Totalco, Veracruz, blocking traffic. Highway blockades are a traditional form of protest in Mexico. Every year, poor communities mount dozens, seeing them as their only way to get powerful elites to hear their demands…police arrived and began beating people. We put our bodies in front of their guns and said, ‘Shoot us!’ And they began shooting…It is one more example of the impact U.S. food corporations have had on local farm communities as they’ve expanded in Mexico. ”

Flash Flood Claims Lives of Ten Migrants in Panama
The Tico Times, July 24, 2024
“Ten migrants died due to the rise of a river in an isolated area of Panama near the Caribbean coast and the border with Colombia, the border police (Senafront) reported on Wednesday. “In the river tributaries near the community of Carreto [in the indigenous region of Guna Yala], 10 bodies of migrants who drowned as a result of a flash flood (river rise) were observed,” Senafront said in a statement.”

Honduras: ‘We demand environmental justice in the face of corrupt interests insensitive to local needs’
Civicus, July 21, 2024
“On 13 June, an open council meeting convened by the Tocoa mayor’s office approved a petroleum coke thermoelectric plant, despite a legal appeal by the local community. It is feared the project will cause deforestation, sedimentation and pollution of the Guapinol River. A similar conflict took place in 2014 when, without consulting communities, the authorities granted permits for a mine in a protected national park affecting the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers. In response to their peaceful protests against the project, many activists were criminalised and eight were imprisoned for long periods.”

Regional

Venezuela’s Election Was Deeply Flawed. Here’s How. 
Genevieve Glatsky, The New York Times, July 31, 2024 
“It had already been clear for months that Venezuela’s presidential election on Sunday, would not be free or fair, as the government jailed opposition leaders or disqualified them from running for office, and prevented millions of Venezuelans abroad from voting.”

The Unsettling Rise of Political Violence in America
Virginia Valenzuela, The Good Men Project, July 24, 2024
“In recent decades, political violence has been characterized as a symptom of corruption and a general lack of civility amongst a country’s citizens…Yet, in recent years the political landscape above the border has become increasingly violent and corrupt. And it’s not people from Latin America who are carrying out these crimes.”

What Kamala Harris’s record in Central America and the Caribbean reveals about her foreign policy approach
Jason Marczak, Atlantic Council, July 24, 2024
“Her approach: Listen to a broad array of stakeholders, act, follow up, and then adjust tactics as needed. This approach can take time to implement, but it also proves adaptive to unexpected challenges.”

U.S. Government Announces $60 Million in Humanitarian Assistance for Haiti
U.S. Agency of International Development, July 22, 2024
“U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced that the United States, through USAID, is providing $60 million in humanitarian assistance to support the Haitian people and alleviate the suffering caused by gang violence and the multi-dimensional crisis.”

Paris 2024 Olympics Special

They fled from their home countries. Now, they’ll compete in Paris for the Refugee Olympic Team
Megan Janetsky, Renata Brito, Kirsten Greishaber, and Daniella Matar, AP News, July 11, 2024
“They compete under the same flag but speak different languages and come from different parts of the world. After fleeing war and persecution at home, 37 athletes from 11 countries will compete in the Paris Games as part of the Refugee Olympic Team. The team was created for the Rio Olympics in 2016 as a symbol of hope and to call attention to the plight of refugees worldwide.”

• *The Migration News Brief is a selection of relevant news articles, all of which do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the Latin America Working Group.

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