Mexico breaks up migrant caravan
(June 13, 2022)
Mexican immigration authorities have dissolved a caravan of almost 7,000 people that started walking across Mexico last week. The migrants were given a migratory document that accredits their regular stay in Mexico, reports CNN.
In its statement, the Mexican migration agency did not specify what kind of documents were issued but most of the migrants showed papers that gave them a period of one month or more to leave the country or begin regularization procedures in Mexico. Most want to use the documents to reach the U.S. border, reports the Associated Press.
Hundreds of people were heading north in buses while others were spread out over various towns north of Tapachula, near the Guatemalan border, resting or waiting to receive money from relatives to continue their trip to the United States.
Many participants in the migrant caravan that set out to walk across Mexico last week came from Venezuela, reports the New York Times.
A recent Human Rights Watch report found migrants and asylum seekers who enter Mexico through its southern border face abuses and struggle to obtain protection or legal status as a result of policies aimed at preventing them from reaching the U.S.
News Briefs
Summit of the Americas
The U.S. decision to restrict summit invitations to democracies omitted the presence of countries key to the agenda’s top issues, argues William LeoGrande in Responsible Statecraft. The countries excluded and those whose presidents stayed home accounted for 69 percent of the migrants encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in April. (See Friday’s post.)
Brazil
Media reports early this morning stated that the bodies of Dom Phillips and Bruno Araújo Pereira had been found in the Amazon Javari valley, where they were last seen alive on June 5. But a federal police statement and a spokesman for local indigenous association UNIVAJA, which has organized search efforts, denied the reports. They said only biological material and belongings of the missing men had been found so far. (AFP)
The personal items were discovered on Saturday thanks to a small but determined Indigenous search team that has spent the past seven days on the frontline of the hunt for the two missing men who had both, in different ways, championed the Indigenous cause, reports the Guardian.
Brazilian military leaders have started raising questions about the legitimacy of the country’s long-established electronic voting system. Their warnings of vulnerabilities in the country’s electoral system echo President Jair Bolsonaro’s ongoing (and unfounded) allegations of potential irregularities, and ratchet up tensions ahead of October’s presidential vote, reports the New York Times.
Regional
Latin American governments and companies have taken advantage of social protests over the years to enrich themselves or exchange favors at the expense of dozens of victims, according to a new investigation by dozens of media outlets. Police forces of the continent buy less lethal weapons without knowing what they acquire or how they are used, violating laws and regulations, reports El País.
Regional Relations
Argentine authorities have grounded an Iran-linked Venezuelan Boeing 747 cargo plane. Argentina's government has not publicly confirmed the seizure, but an Interior Ministry document shared with Reuters said authorities had taken the action due to suspicions over the stated reason for the plane entering the country.
Colombia
Colombian presidential candidates Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernández are neck-to-neck ahead of Sunday’s runoff vote. “The high stakes have generated increasingly combative rhetoric from both campaigns, and false and misleading information is abundant,” according to the Latin America Risk Report.
Regardless of who wins, the election will be a turning point in Colombia-U.S. relations, reports the Los Angles Times. Both candidates are questioning some of the fundamental tenets of the two countries’ relationship, according to the Wilson Center’s Cynthia Arnson. "Should it occur, a loss of strategic partnership would be a blow to U.S. policy in the hemisphere," she said.
Bolivia
Former Bolivian interim president Jeanine Añez was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Friday, on charges of breaching her duties and enacting resolutions against Bolivia’s Constitution. The case has raised concerns that the country’s leaders are using the courts to target political adversaries. It is not a new issue: Human Rights Watch researcher Cesar Muñoz said the Bolivian justice system has been harnessed by previous governments on both ends of the political spectrum to seek revent on their political opponents, reports the New York”
Bolivia
Former Bolivian interim president Jeanine Áñez was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Friday, on charges of breaching her duties and enacting resolutions against Bolivia’s Constitution. The prosecution said Áñez, then a rightwing senator, violated norms that guarantee the constitutional and democratic order after Bolivia’s 2019 presidential elections, reports Reuters.
The case has raised concerns that the country’s leaders are using the courts to target political adversaries. It is not a new issue: Human Rights Watch researcher Cesar Muñoz said the Bolivian justice system has been harnessed by previous governments on both ends of the political spectrum to seek revent on their political opponents, reports the New York Times.
El Salvador
Over the past three decades, El Salvador had become a beacon of media freedom in a region where journalists are sometimes jailed and even killed for their work, reports the Los Angeles Times, in a profile of reporters Oscar and Carlos Martínez. Their work has become considerably more dangerous under President Nayib Bukele, who has sought to muzzle critical press.