Nov 22, 2020

Weekly adamisacson.com - Issue #38

Happy Thanksgiving if you're reading this in the United States (or are a U.S. citizen elsewhere). If you're not, then, well, "happy next Thursday."

Pandemic Thanksgiving means just my wife, daughter, and me eating turkey at home while Zooming and FaceTiming relatives. Including my Mom and stepdad who are 45 minutes away in the suburbs, but it's just too risky to spend hours together indoors right now. I hope that if you celebrate the holiday, you do so with similar safety, but that you feel accompanied.

It's a rough start to what will be a rough winter in the northern hemisphere. As of this weekend, we've entered the 2 months of the year with the least daylight, and it's all too noticeable. We should all make a point to go out for a walk each day while it's light out. (I've been bad at this, so I'm writing this for me, too.) At least in 30 days, the days will start getting longer again.

Wola Podcast—the Transition: U.S. Credibility, Cooperation, and a Changed Tone

I thought it would be a good idea to record a few podcasts with colleagues at WOLA to talk about what this U.S. presidential transition means for Washington’s relations with Latin America. Here’s the first of what should be a series of four: more of an overall view of what Biden can do in a context of diminished U.S. standing and credibility in the region.

The .mp3 file is here. The podcast feed is here. And here’s the text from WOLA’s podcast landing page:

The United States is in the transition period between the Biden and Trump administrations. For U.S.-Latin American relations, this will mean a sharp shift between two very different visions of how Washington should work with the hemisphere.

The shift will be sharp in some ways, at least—but not across the board: even amid a changed tone, there may be some surprising continuities. And the United States, beset domestically with political polarization, human rights controversies, and mismanagement of a public health emergency, suffers from reduced influence and credibility in the region.

It’s a complex moment. Discussing it in this episode are WOLA’s President, Geoff Thale; Vice President for Programs Maureen Meyer; Director for Drug Policy and the Andes John Walsh; Senior Fellow Jo-Marie Burt; and Venezuela Program Assistant Kristin Martinez-Gugerli.

This is the first of a few discussions in which the podcast will talk about the transition. In coming weeks we plan to cover migration and border security; anti-corruption; and the state of human rights and democracy.

Listen to WOLA’s Latin America Today podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The main feed is here.

Graphics that depict what's going on at the border

Late Thursday, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released a pile of data about migration and drug seizures at the U.S.-Mexico border in October.

Here are some key trends. Click on any graphic to expand in a new window. You can download a PDF packet of more than 30 of these infographics at bit.ly/wola_border.

The Trump administration has been around for 46 months (yes I know). Of those 46, October 2020 saw the 7th largest number of undocumented migrants apprehended at the border. And now they can’t blame it on “loopholes” or agents being constrained. They’re implementing some of the hardest-line anti-migration tactics ever, express-expelling most everybody, including asylum seekers, under a March 2020 CDC quarantine order.

Under the CDC border closure, US authorities have now express-expelled undocumented migrants 266,367 times. (The actual number of individual people is fewer, because some have been caught more than once.) At least 13,000 of those expelled were children who arrived unaccompanied, and were pushed back to their home countries unaccompanied.

Border Patrol is apprehending more single adults than at any time in the past decade. While there’s double-counting here because “expelled” migrants often make a second or third attempt quickly, this is a dramatic change in the profile of migrants. Many of them may be deportees seeking to reunite with spouses, children, or other family members. Nearly all seek to avoid apprehension, which means it’s likely that more will die of dehydration or exposure in deserts and other wilderness areas.

For much of the 2010s, a large number—often a majority—of apprehended migrants were children and families, usually seeking to be apprehended in order to petition for asylum or other protection. Draconian Trump policies like “Remain in Mexico” reduced child and family asylum-seeking migration—but it has been slowly recovering in recent months.

Expulsions mean it’s virtually impossible for a parent or child who needs protection to do so by approaching a port of entry (official border crossing).

Mexico’s migrant apprehensions recovered in September to pre-pandemic levels. The overwhelming majority are from Central America.

After a pandemic lull, applications for asylum before Mexico’s refugee agency COMAR recovered to early 2020 levels in October.

Something is up with drug seizures. I had to increase the y-axis on three of these charts because of a big jump from September to October. Nearly all seizures occurred at ports of entry where CBP officers inspect vehicles, not between the ports where Border Patrol operates.

Colombia peace update: week of November 15, 2020

In this edition:

Four ex-FARC members killed in a week
Security Forces kill top “paramilitary” and capture a FARC dissident; a second dissident is killed in Venezuela
Military questioned for misogynistic chants

Colombia peace update: Week of November 15, 2020 - Colombia Peace

Between now and the end of the year, we’re producing weekly sub-1,000-word updates in English about peace accord implementation and related topics. After that, we will evaluate the experience—both audience response and our own time commitment—before deciding whether to produce…Read more →

Weekly border update: November 20, 2020

In this edition:

October sees another big jump in undocumented migration
Court says unaccompanied children can’t be expelled
Speculation about what Biden might do with the border wall

Weekly Border Update: November 20, 2020 - Adam Isacson Adam Isacson

There’s so much happening at the U.S.-Mexico border—much of it outrageous, some of it heroic—that it’s hard to keep track. With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments in 900 words or less. We welcome your feedback. October sees another big jump in undocumented migration CBP reported on November […]

Two interviews from last Thursday

I enjoyed talking about the border for an hour, on DC poet and all-around-brilliant person Ethelbert Miller’s radio show, on November 19.

‎WPFW - On The Margin: On The Margin - Thursday, November 19, 2020 on Apple Podcasts

‎E. Ethelbert Miller is a poet, memoirist, and literary activist. He is an inductee of the 2015 Washington, DC Hall of Fame and recipient of the AWP 2016 George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature and the 2016 DC Mayor's Arts Award for Distinguished Honor. The Collected Poem…

And later that same day I was pleased that Cuestión de Poder, on the NTN24 cable network, wanted to dig into the COVID-era expansion of Latin America’s militaries’ roles. We’ll be wrestling with this for a while.

5 links from the past week

A country that won’t take dramatic action after 250,000 people die from a pandemic also won’t take dramatic action after 2.5 million weapons are smuggled from its legal gun dealers across the border into Mexico, just over the past 10 years.
5,400 words in English about Colombia’s false positives scandal, the ups and downs of the country’s armed forces, and the struggle of the victims? Yes, please. The Guardian’s latest “long read” is a great piece by Mariana Palau.
Two of the profession’s most trusted and cited border and migration reporters, Alfredo Corchado and Dianne Solís at The Dallas Morning News, dig into the likelihood that the Biden administration will truly undo the Trump administration’s hardline policies. This analysis will lower your expectations.
It’s more than just climate change. Writing between two brutal hurricanes, El Faro’sCarlos Martínez draws a direct parallel between Honduras’s endemic corruption and the amount of damage that a storm can do. Pair that with this analysis of Honduras’s “murky” police reform and pervasive mistrust of government, by Marna Shorack, Elizabeth G. Kennedy, and Amelia Frank-Vitale at NACLA.
In an excellent four-part series, Nicaragua’s Expediente Público talks to experts and social movement leaders to figure out what it would take to reimagine and reform the country’s police force in an eventual post-Ortega context.

I'll be on the Thursday (Thanksgiving) morning Friedrich Ebert Foundation "Red Latinoamericana de Seguridad Incluyente y Sostenible" panel, talking about post-Trump U.S.-Latin American relations.

Monday, November 23

9:00-10:30 at Zoom: Segundo Congreso de la Red Latinoamericana de Seguridad Incluyente y Sostenible “Desafíos de la Seguridad en Tiempos de Crisis Múltiples” (RSVP required).
12:00-1:30 at Facebook Live: Conversatorio: La verdad es un acto de justicia.
1:00-2:00 at wilsoncenter.org: DOJ’s Role in Fighting Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Money Laundering in Latin America (RSVP required).
1:30-3:00 at Zoom: Segundo Congreso de la Red Latinoamericana de Seguridad Incluyente y Sostenible “Desafíos de la Seguridad en Tiempos de Crisis Múltiples” (RSVP required).
5:00 at atlanticcouncil.org: Latin America and the Caribbean’s COVID-19 recovery: A conversation with IDB President Mauricio Claver-Carone (RSVP required).
6:30-7:30 at gwu.edu: The Future of US-Latin American Relations Under the Biden Administration (RSVP required).

Tuesday, November 24

9:00-10:30 at Zoom: Segundo Congreso de la Red Latinoamericana de Seguridad Incluyente y Sostenible “Desafíos de la Seguridad en Tiempos de Crisis Múltiples” (RSVP required).
9:00-10:30 at wilsoncenter.org: Brazil, No Longer the Country of Impunity? The Lessons of Operation Car Wash (RSVP required).
11:00 at Zoom: Deadly Trade: How European and Israeli weapons exports are accelerating violence in Mexico (RSVP required).
1:00-2:15 at brookings.edu: The Biden presidency and the future of America’s ‘forever wars’ (RSVP required).
3:00 at atlanticcouncil.org: Thriving amid COVID-19: Illicit trade in Latin America and the Caribbean(RSVP required).
5:00 at Zoom: Participación Política de Mujeres Afrodescendientes en América Latina y el Caribe: Retos y Oportunidades (RSVP required).
4:00-5:30 at Zoom: Segundo Congreso de la Red Latinoamericana de Seguridad Incluyente y Sostenible “Desafíos de la Seguridad en Tiempos de Crisis Múltiples” (RSVP required).

Wednesday, November 25

9:00-10:30 at Zoom: Segundo Congreso de la Red Latinoamericana de Seguridad Incluyente y Sostenible “Desafíos de la Seguridad en Tiempos de Crisis Múltiples” (RSVP required).
11:00 at Zoom: Coca and Capitalism in Cauca (RSVP required).
2:00 at Zoom: Los Golpistas, la Democracia y los Jóvenes que la Podrían Salvar (RSVP required).
3:00-4:30 at Zoom: Segundo Congreso de la Red Latinoamericana de Seguridad Incluyente y Sostenible “Desafíos de la Seguridad en Tiempos de Crisis Múltiples” (RSVP required).

Thursday, November 26

9:00-10:30 at Zoom: Segundo Congreso de la Red Latinoamericana de Seguridad Incluyente y Sostenible “Desafíos de la Seguridad en Tiempos de Crisis Múltiples” (RSVP required).
4:00-5:30 at Zoom: Segundo Congreso de la Red Latinoamericana de Seguridad Incluyente y Sostenible “Desafíos de la Seguridad en Tiempos de Crisis Múltiples” (RSVP required).
8:00PM at Facebook Live and YouTube: Las Violencias del Racismo.