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Updates from Adam Isacson (February 9, 2025)

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What more is there to say? We knew that the first few weeks of the Trump administration would be a gigantic exercise in “flooding the zone”: a blitz of legally dubious policy changes, coming at a pace that overwhelms the capacity of a beleaguered opposition party, a cautious mainstream media, and an underfunded collection of NGOs.

From the closure of the border to mass deportations to the foreign aid freeze, these policies are going to hurt a lot of people. I’m seeing signs, though, of an opposition stirring and coalescing in defense of human rights and democracy both at home and abroad. Still, it’s going to be slow for a while.

In the meantime, as the zone floods, we’re sharing information about where it’s flowing, contributing to several coalitions, informing congressional staff, supporting media outlets that reach bigger or different audiences, and supporting litigators with our research. Even if we can't take on every bad policy that has been dumped on us in the past three weeks, we've captured them all, in the Border Updates and elsewhere: each one is on a virtual bulletin board with a virtual pin in it, all under a big virtual "To Do" sign. This is all just getting started.

This week’s update has the Border Update (a huge one because it was a tragic, historic week), recordings of two interviews about the border and migration, a joint statement, links to upcoming events, and some recommended readings.

Stay well and thank you for reading.

Today (February 9) marks a full year since Venezuela's regime detained our friend and colleague Rocío San Miguel, an expert on security and civil-military relations. She is in the feared Helicoide prison in Caracas.

She has a fracture in her right shoulder and needs surgery. Free her now.

Here's the law. Only Congress, by passing a new law, can abolish USAID.

The "reorganization plan" authority mentioned here expired back on October 1, 1999.

USAID is permanent.

Title 22 US Code, Sec. 6563, passed in 1998 by a Republican-majority Congress and signed by a Democratic president.

Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: tariffs, soldiers, flights, Guantánamo, Venezuela, Salvadoran jails

(Posted Friday, February 7)

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

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:

  • A tariff threat and a Mexican military deployment: after President Trump threatened to levy tariffs on Mexican imports, the Mexican government agreed to send 10,000 National Guard personnel to the U.S. border zone.
  • Reduced migration, and almost no asylum access, as groups file suit: fewer migrants are arriving at the border, in part because it is now impossible to exercise the right to asylum; a new lawsuit challenges the Trump administration’s border shutdown.
  • The U.S. military at the border and in the deportation effort: the new administration has now sent about 2,100 active-duty troops to the border as the new defense secretary paid a visit and military deportation flights—including one to India—continue.
  • First detainees taken to Guantánamo: two military planes have taken less than two dozen detained migrants, apparently people with ties to a Venezuelan organized crime group, to the notorious terrorist detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
  • Administration cancels TPS for Venezuelans: nearly 350,000 Venezuelans will lose their ability to live and work in the United States in April as the Trump administration reverses an extension that the Biden administration had granted in January. A similar number of Venezuelans face the same fate in September.
  • “Migration diplomacy” in Venezuela and Central America: a Trump administration envoy met with Venezuela’s dictator and appears to have secured a deal to allow deportation flights. The new secretary of state visited Central America and secured increased cooperation against migration, including a deal to send prisoners to El Salvador’s growing jails.
  • Mass deportation proceeds as Congress prepares a big funding bill: ICE is ramping up its arrests, detentions, and removals in the U.S. interior as Congress prepares a spending measure that could total $150 billion for border security.
  • Texas seeks reimbursement for “Operation Lone Star”: Texas’s governor, a Trump ally, is offering the federal government use of facilities built with state funds while asking for reimbursement of $11 billion spent on its border crackdown. Texas National Guard troops may now arrest migrants for CBP.

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.

On Greg Sargent’s “Daily Blast” Podcast

(Posted Saturday, February 8)

I had a great conversation with Greg Sargent at the New Republic for his popular “Daily Blast” podcast, which he released on February 6. The audio is here and a transcript is here. We talked about migration through Mexico and the futility of blowing up a multifaceted bilateral relationship by threatening tariffs over it.

The introductory text for the podcast reads:

Stephen Miller privately worried about imposing overly aggressive tariffs on Mexico because it could imperil Mexico’s effort to apprehend migrants traveling north to our southern border, reports The Wall Street Journal. That revelation is striking. Understood correctly, it’s an acknowledgment that Mexico had already been cracking down on migration, due to an arrangement secured by President Biden. That badly undermines Trump’s scam that his threat of tariffs forced Mexico to do his bidding on the border. We talked to Adam Isacson, an expert on Latin America, who explains what Mexico has actually been doing on immigration, and why it undercuts Trump’s biggest claims about immigration, tariffs, Mexico, and more. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.

From the Field: The First 14 Days of Border Impacts Under the Trump Administration’s Executive Orders

(Posted Wednesday, February 5)

Here's a joint statement published with our friends at the Kino Border Initiative in Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora. They run a shelter near the borderline where migrants stay for short periods while awaiting a chance to seek asylum (which is impossible at the moment) or after being deported into Mexico (which is starting to increase at the moment).

Immediate Consequences in Nogales, Sonora

The Trump administration’s restrictive immigration measures have rapidly brought about a humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. With the termination of the CBP One program, asylum seekers with scheduled appointments were left stranded, forcing many into precarious conditions. The following notes summarize the tangible impacts we have observed over the last 14 days on the border of Nogales, Sonora.

Highlighting the Crisis

  • About 30,000 appointments were canceled in total
  • About 270,000 people who had registered with the app are stranded in Mexico. (Wall Street Journal says “about 200,000”)
  • More than 936,500 people paroled under CBP One over the past two years might have their status revoked anytime if they haven’t adjusted it, and end up undocumented in the United States.
  • Since January 20, KBI has only received 23 individuals deported to Nogales, MX, compared to 58 individuals the first 3 weeks of January and 218 in the month of December. However, KBI staff in conversation with Mexican officials have learned that the Border Patrol continues to deport large groups of migrants to Nogales.
  • Mexican immigration officials and the Mexican National Guard are escorting deported individuals directly to 2 specific shelters, at times “against their will,” since many migrants express that they prefer to travel on their own to the bus station.
  • Non Mexicans are being moved straight to Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora about 180 miles south of Nogales, and later moved more than 1,800 miles to Mexico’s southern border.
  • Since January 20, we’ve received 144 persons, only 23 of them deported. At least 35 had CBP One appointments scheduled on or after January 20, which were canceled.

Human Stories of Stranded Asylum Seekers

  • Mohammadi, a 40-year-old Afghani man fleeing Taliban persecution, lost his CBP One appointment just three days before his scheduled entry. He speaks and understands very little English, and no Spanish at all.
  • Lorena*, a Mexican police officer fleeing death threats to her children, had waited for months in Tijuana only to have her long-awaited CBP One appointment taken away without any alternative provided.
  • Yuli* and her Venezuelan family, survivors of kidnapping and assault, are now stuck in Nogales after losing their asylum processing date.
  • Vivienne*, a Haitian mother with a newborn, faces an uncertain future, unable to seek safety in the U.S.
  • Adriana*, a Venezuelan woman, was falsely promised a rescheduled appointment, only to be turned away due to the executive order.

Increasing Vulnerability and Lack of Protection

Migrants in Nogales face extreme dangers, including organized crime violence, extortion, and human rights abuses by officials. In January alone:

  • 51% of migrants arriving at the Kino Border Initiative (KBI) reported experiencing abuse during their journey.
  • Around 65% of the people who arrived at the KBI center in the last two weeks are women.
  • Around 68% of the population who arrived in the last two weeks have indicated violence as the reason for leaving their places of origin. Of these, at least 30% are Mexican nationals who are now stranded in the same country they are fleeing, where criminal networks connected throughout the country may be able to track them down.
  • On January 20, KBI staff accompanied approximately 30 individuals, including many families with children, who had CBP One appointments at 4:30PM that day and wanted confirmation from U.S. officials about whether their appointments would be honored or not. A Mexican security guard in communication with the CBP Office of Field Operations (OFO) officer told the group they could line up where they normally would; they waited there for 30 minutes without any communication from OFO. Finally KBI staff approached the officer to ask what was happening, and they responded that all asylum processing via the CBP One app was canceled. KBI requested an officer explain the changes to the migrant families waiting, so they sent a manager to talk with the people and answer questions. One woman asked, “Even if I’ve been waiting for a year, my appointment will not be honored?” and the officer said no, it would not.
  • The CBP One termination, coupled with Biden’s 2024 asylum restrictions, has effectively eliminated lawful pathways for families seeking asylum. U.S. officials have explicitly stated that asylum processing is no longer an option. This lack of due process was exemplified by Mariana*, a 45-year-old Nicaraguan woman fleeing political repression, who was turned away at the border on January 21st and told that by “order of President Trump, no one could pass through or request asylum.”

At Venezuela’s Efecto Cocuyo: ¿Cómo mejorar el sistema de migración de EE. UU.?

(Posted Saturday, February 8)

Thank you to Luz Mely Reyes of the independent Venezuelan media outlet Efecto Cocuyo for hosting and sharing this conversation about the Trump administration’s ongoing anti-immigration offensive and the outlines of what a better policy would look like.

It is in Spanish, as is the site’s writeup of the interview. Here’s a quick English translation of that page:

The United States’ immigration policies, now based on a promise from a president who pledged to carry out the largest deportation in history, has generated a devastating impact on the community of migrants living in the United States, whose stay in that country is threatened by a system that makes it difficult for them to apply for asylum and regularize their immigration status through policies that have become obsolete.

To analyze the role of asylum, the causes of migration, the impact of U.S. policies, and recommendations for a more effective and humane management of the migratory phenomenon, Luz Mely Reyes, director of Efecto Cocuyo, spoke with Adam Isacson, director for Defense Oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).

From the “stick and the carrot to just the stick”.

According to Isacson, the Biden administration adopted a mixed strategy, combining incentives (the “carrot”) such as humanitarian parole and the use of CBP One to schedule appointments at the border, with restrictive measures (the “stick”) such as the continuation of Title 42 to remove migrants and rules limiting access to asylum for those without prior appointments. “So, Biden chose something of a carrot and stick arrangement for the many migrants who were arriving.”

The Wola executive describes Trump’s policy as exclusively punitive (“stick only”), with the elimination of humanitarian parole, making access to asylum more difficult, and increasing deportations. He highlights the use of deportation flights, including with military aircraft. “In its two weeks, it has chosen only the stick and ended the carrots. CBP One no longer exists,” he explained.

A “broken and rickety immigration system”

Isacson emphasizes that the U.S. immigration system is “broken” and has a “rickety” capacity to receive, process and evaluate asylum claims. This is despite the fact that the majority of migrants are asylum seekers.

The executive explains that, currently, most migrants’ cases are handled by about 700 immigration judges who must hear more than 3 million cases that take years to resolve.

Isacson explains that although many migrants are fleeing insecurity and violence, for the most part their applications do not meet the strict requirements for asylum in the United States. “One cannot flee, no one cannot get asylum statuses in the U.S. just for being a victim of widespread violence or just for not being able to feed their children because of the situation of bad governance.”

WOLA’s recommendations for more effective immigration management

  • Implement a reform of the 1990 immigration laws to reflect today’s reality, more residency quotas and facilitating application for residency from countries of origin.
  • Strengthen the refugee program to provide a safe alternative to the dangerous journey to the US.
  • Streamline asylum processes to be faster (less than a year), fair and efficient, with more judges and avoiding detention of asylum seekers.
  • Enforce existing laws that grant the right to asylum and protect vulnerable populations.

Isacson also advocates for fair, faster, more efficient, more just decisions with better processing. “There are so many things we have to do right now just to get to common sense and basic legality, that talk of reform is an issue for the future at this point.”

(Posted Saturday, February 8)

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

Tuesday, February 11

Wednesday, February 12

Thursday, February 13

Ecuadorians are voting on their next president and legislature as the country grapples with a violent crime wave and economic malaise
Ecuador’s presidential candidates will depend on presenting themselves as hardliners in the upcoming election as security concerns continue
Hacía más de un siglo que América Latina no era el destino del viaje inaugural de un secretario de Estado de Estados Unidos
MILENIO hizo una recopilación de las organizaciones criminales —entre ellas mexicanas— con presencia en Estados Unidos. Aquí te decimos en qué estados operan y cómo llegaron
With a link to the complaint filed in D.C. federal court against the Trump administration's January 20 border shutdown

And Finally

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