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Updates from Adam Isacson (February 3, 2025)

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I hope that you are doing well, and if so, that you can explain to me exactly how that could possibly be.

Just a quick update from me, because it’s been just six days since the last one. Below you'll find:

  • the intro and link to Friday’s Border Update (these are getting insane amounts of downloads right now);
  • the intro and link to a new WOLA commentary about the incalculable damage that the USAID freeze is wreaking—written before the unprecedented and incredibly illegal effort, over the weekend, to destroy the agency;
  • a brief video I shot on Sunday afternoon while walking around Washington from OPM to GSA to Treasury to USAID, feeling ever lonelier every step of the way;
  • links to this week's Latin America-related events in Washington and online; and
  • a few links to recommended reading, though it’s been the kind of week when few have been publishing deep 30,000-foot-overview “think pieces” or investigations.

Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: a quiet border, mass deportation, military flights

(Posted Friday, January 31)

  • Read the whole thing here. See past weekly updates here.

This Update is the product of interviews and the review of over 270,000 words of source documents since January 23.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

The many actions and changes following Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration force a change in this week’s Border Update format. Instead of narratives organized under three or four topics, this Update organizes brief points under the following headings:

Read the whole thing here.

Support ad-free, paywall-free Weekly Border Updates. Your donation to WOLA is crucial to sustain this effort. Please contribute now and support our work.

From WOLA: Trump’s Pause of U.S. Foreign Assistance to Latin America: An “America Last” Policy

(Posted Friday, January 31)

Here is a piece that WOLA published Friday (January 31) in response to the Trump administration’s 90-day freeze on most foreign aid. It’s even more urgent now: since we published it, the President and Elon Musk (which is which isn’t always clear) have been on a full-bore offensive to abolish USAID.

Here’s the intro, but you can read the whole thing at WOLA’s site.

The unprecedented pause and potential elimination of many U.S. foreign assistance programs, announced in President Trump’s executive order “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid,” has caused shock waves worldwide. The State Department has since backtracked and taken the welcome move to exclude “life-saving humanitarian assistance” from this freeze. Still, most programs remain on long-term hold even though they support priorities that the Trump administration claims to uphold, like curbing mass migration, reducing illicit drug supplies, and fostering economic prosperity.

State Department and USAID-managed foreign assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean totaled a little over $2 billion in FY 2023, the most recent year for which an actual amount is available. While this is a fraction of the $45 billion in base U.S. foreign assistance obligated for State and USAID programs that year, it is enough to guarantee that great harm will result from the 90-day pause in use of funds and the possibility that agreed-upon programs might be modified or discontinued. That is causing great uncertainty and alarm among “implementing partners”—civil society organizations, international organizations, and contractors region-wide—they are being forced to cancel events, lay off staff, and determine how or if they will be able to honor commitments. 

The freeze applies beyond development and human rights efforts to encompass programs that groups like WOLA have often critiqued. Much U.S. military and police aid, including training programs and counter-drug eradication and interdiction funded through the State Department’s International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) Bureau, is now on hold. 

Far from making the United States safer, stronger, and more prosperous, the pause in funding and uncertainty about future funds undermine fundamental U.S. interests to an extent that is difficult to comprehend. It is actively weakening efforts to address the reasons millions are fleeing Latin America and the Caribbean, like armed conflicts, violent organized crime, rampant corruption, democratic backsliding, closing civic space, weak justice systems and rule of law, inadequate policing and public security, gender-based violence, exclusion from formal markets, and vulnerability to climate change. The aid freeze is an exquisitely wrapped gift to the United States’ regional adversaries, from dictators to drug lords to human smugglers to great-power rivals like China. 

Read the whole thing here.

February 2, 2025: A Strangely Quiet Walk Through Trump and Musk’s Washington

(Posted Sunday, February 2)

I heard there’s a slow-motion coup happening in Washington this weekend, and I needed some exercise, so I visited some of the scenes where it’s all going down right now.

The result: it was lonely.

(Posted Monday, February 3)

(Events that I know of, anyway. All times are U.S. Eastern.)

Monday, February 3

  • 12:00 at atlanticcouncil.com: Why Ecuador matters for the future of the Western Hemisphere’s security (RSVP required).

Tuesday, February 4

Wednesday, February 5

  • 10:00-11:00 at the Inter-American Dialogue and Online: Peru’s Path Forward: Navigating Political, Economic, and Global Dynamics (RSVP required).
  • 4:30-6:00 at Georgetown University and online: Global Outlook: Latin America’s Place in the World (RSVP required).

Thursday, February 6

  • 10:00 in Room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building: Hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee on Combatting Existing and Emerging Illicit Drug Threats.
  • 10:00-11:00 at the Inter-American Dialogue and online: A Roadmap to Protect Independent Journalism in Repressive Countries (RSVP required).
  • 4:30-6:00 at Georgetown University and online: Breaking Latin America’s Cycle of Low Growth and Violence (RSVP required).
Aggressive U.S. foreign policy could push regional governments into China’s arms
Trump’s threats of tariffs and mass deportations fuel rising anxiety on the border and in Mexico. Border businesses that depend on trade are bracing for the economic consequences. Mexican officials publicly downplay the impact but prepare for whatever comes next
Más de 40.000 personas se han desplazado desde veredas hasta Tibú y Cúcuta
After a barrage of threats from President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now tasked with trying to reap cooperation from Latin America
Incredibly, the Trump administration's aid freeze extends even to counter-drug military and police aid, so the Black Hawk helicopters at the center of the original "Plan Colombia" aid packages are grounded for lack of contractor support

Meanwhile, in Mexico

Aerial view of the tent facility that Mexico's government has set up in anticipation of mass deportations to Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso. (Photo by Christian Torres/Anadolu via Getty Images at Border Report.)

Venus and Saturn in the West last week

I took this one with my phone.

And Finally

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