Humanitarian crisis in Catatumbo
Jan 21, 2025 (Corrected error in Catatumbo region name)
Colombia’s government declared a state of internal unrest in response to the National Liberation Army (ELN) violence in Catatumbo — at least 80 people were killed since last Thursday, amid a breakdown of a precarious peace between the ELN and a Farc dissident group. Fighting is ongoing, reports El País. (See yesterday’s post.)
“The ELN has chosen the path of war, and that’s what they will get,” President Gustavo Petro wrote on social media yesterday, accusing the guerrillas of turning into a drug trafficking group.
The current clashes are the among the worst Colombia has seen since Petro took office in 2022 with a promise to bring “total peace” to a country long afflicted by internal violence, reports the Guardian.
“The situation in Catatumbo is critical,” according to WOLA, which joined the United Nations, Human Rights Ombudsman, Defendemos la Paz, and others calling for an immediate end to the violence perpetrated by illegal armed groups in the Catatumbo region
Experts say a humanitarian crisis is unfolding amid the violence, more than 18,000 people have been displaced from their homes, some going over the border to Venezuela. The ELN, Colombias largest guerrilla force, said it has been targeting only members of its rival group, but Colombian authorities said people involved in the peace process have been targeted. (See yesterday’s post.)
Former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, who demobilized in a 2016 peace deal with the government, have now been targeted by the ELN, reports the Associated Press. The Ombudsman's Office, a rights watchdog, cited reports of ELN rebels going from "house to house," killing people suspected of ties to the FARC dissidents.
According to La Silla Vacía, ELN guerrilla leadership has been planning to retake control of the area, leveraging its relationship with neighboring Venezuela’s Maduro government.
While Petro and Nicolás Maduro have maintained diplomatic relations, tensions have grown in recent months, as Petro has criticized the Venezuelan autocrat’s human rights record and electoral irregularities, reports the New York Times.
Trump 2.0 launches
A series of executive orders marked Donald Trump’s first day back in the White House, several of which aim to upend the U.S. relationship with migrants from around the world, but particularly from Latin America.
Trump declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border to allow him to circumvent Congress and unlock federal funding for border wall construction and other enforcement efforts. He also signed an order that gave the military an explicit role in immigration enforcement and directed the Defense Department to come up with a plan “to seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion.”
Other Trump orders unravel the Biden administration’s efforts to provide legal pathways for migration in order to discourage illegal migration.
The government shut down a program that allowed migrants to obtain asylum appointments through an application — a move that plunged about 30,000 migrants who had existing appointments to enter the United States into limbo, reports the New York Times. Supporters say CBP One has helped bring order to the border and reduced illegal crossings, reports the Associated Press.
He also began to undo humanitarian parole, a program that allowed migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela to fly into the United States if they had a financial sponsor and passed security checks. Migrants who entered under the program could stay for up to two years, unless they found other ways to stay long term. (New York Times)
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her country will not support the U.S. reinstating a policy known as Remain in Mexico, which under the first Trump presidency forced migrants applying for asylum to wait in Mexico until the time of their hearings in immigration court. The policy had a high human toll: asylum seekers waiting in border cities are extremely vulnerable to organized crime, and were targeted for extortion, kidnapping and rape, according to human rights groups.Mexico advocates a system like the CBP One that was just cancelled. (Animal Político, New York Times)
The Justice Department yesterday removed the four top officials from the agency that operates the U.S. immigration courts — one of the first signs that Trump and allies “are seeking immediate changes in how asylum claims are processed and want to deliver on promises to fire career staffers who administration officials believed could be obstacles to their work,” reports the Washington Post.
Many of the moves could be challenged in U.S. courts. Indeed, the American Civil Liberties Union has already challenged a presidential order that yesterday directed federal agencies not to issue citizenship documents to U.S.-born children of undocumented people, a move that ignores the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship.
Manifest Destiny
Trump declared, in his inaugural speech which invoked the 19th century expansionist doctrine of "Manifest Destiny,” that the Panama Canal was a “foolish gift” to Panama that “should never have been made.” (See Jan. 6’s post.)
Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino said the waterway “is and will continue to be Panamanian … The canal was not a concession from anyone … It was the result of generational struggles.” (Guardian)
Trump’s Panama reference yesterday “was his most blatant mention of an agenda for territorial expansion that he has laid out in recent weeks,” reports Reuters.
“In the streets of the capital, some Panamanians saw Trump’s remarks as a way of applying pressure on Panama for something else he wants: better control of migration through the Darien Gap. Others recalled the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama with concern,” report the Associated Press.
More Regional Relations
Speaking from the Oval Office yesterday Trump was asked about relations with Latin America and Brazil and said the relationship “should be great,” reports Politico. “They need us much more than we need them. We don't need them,” he said. “They need us. Everybody needs us.”
Countries in the region are emphasizing the mass deportations can’t happen without some sort of negotiation process. The foreign ministers of several countries met last week to discuss their response to the incoming Trump administration in Mexico City, including Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico and Venezuela, and agreed not to allow deportations to occur without previous agreement, reports the New York Times.
“There is no reason why Mexico should keep its head down or feel lesser than. We are a great country, a cultural power,” said President Claudia Sheinbaum during her daily morning news conference, yesterday. “Our relationship with the United States will be one of equals.” (New York Times)
Yesterday Trump also signed an order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, reports the Guardian. The order highlighted Mexican drug cartels and other Latin American criminal groups like Venezuela gang Tren de Aragua and Salvadoran gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), which it said “threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.” Cabinet secretaries will recommend groups for designation as terrorist organizations in the next 14 days, reports the Associated Press.
Ioan Grillo analyzes scenarios for U.S. military actions against Mexican cartels — while Trump’s pressure and threats could push Mexico to reduce the flow of fentanyl to the U.S., or the two countries could cooperate, there is also “a real possibility for U.S. strikes to cause an escalation of violence and conflict with Mexico yet not solve the fundamental problems.” (CrashOut)
Trump also revoked the Biden administration's last-minute decision to remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, reports Reuters.
Trump said his administration would likely stop buying oil from Venezuela and was looking "very strongly" at the South American country, reports Reuters. On the flip side, his newly appointed envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell, had earlier said he spoke with multiple officials in Venezuela and would begin meetings today.
El Salvador
About a thousand people protested in San Salvador against the Bukele administration’s recent mining law, which was passed by a rubber stamp National Assembly and rolls back a landmark mining ban in the country. During the rally, the Catholic Church and the organization Cristosal circulated sheets for attendees to sign a petition for the repeal of the law. Cristosal has announced the filing of a lawsuit for unconstitutionality of the law. (El Faro)
More Migration
14,633 Haitians were deported from the Dominican Republic in the first 15 days of 2025. Complaints of abuses and human rights violations continue amid the DR’s mass deportation of Haitians, writes Jordi Amaral in the Americas Migration Brief. Some Dominicans claim they have been detained in immigration raids due to their physical appearance.
Guatemala is not only bracing for mass deportations from the U.S., but is also planning how to reintegrate migrants back into a society they fled, reports the New York Times.