News Summaries in April 2023

 "As the Fentanyl Crisis Worsens, the U.S.-Mexico Divide Deepens," Washington Post, April 30, 2023

 

The United States and Mexico are locked in a bitter dispute over responsibility for the fentanyl crisis in the U.S., with Americans saying Mexican crime groups are flooding the U.S. with the dangerous opioid and Mexicans saying it comes from Asia. Republicans in the 2024 elections are expected to advocate U.S. military action against drug labs in Mexico as overdose deaths of Americans soar from the drug, which is 100 times more potent than morphine. Of some 100,000 overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2021, two-thirds involved synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl. The drug is the top cause of death among Americans aged 18 to 49, the Post says.  But analysts say military action won’t stop fentanyl deaths in the U.S. because labs are hard to find and if one crime boss is killed another will step in. And military intervention likely would infuriate Mexico, a top U.S. trading partner that Americans rely  on to help control illegal immigration. Into the U.S. 

 

"Surge in Migrants Strains Capacity," Washington Post, April 29, 2023

 

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol stations and holding cells are filled beyond capacity two weeks before the Biden Administrations ends a pandemic-era policy denying many asylum requests. More than 20,000 migrants are in Border Patrol custody. About 7,000 are being held in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, the most crowded sector of the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Many of the migrants are coming from Venezuela. When the volume of migrants has overwhelmed authorities in the past, they’ve released them and resorted to instructing them to report to immigration authorities in U.S. cities. But municipal leaders like New York City Mayor Eric Adams have said they can no longer handle so many migrants coming from the border. These massive releases are widely viewed as an incentive to added illegal entries. Most Venezuelan refugees have resettled in other South American countries rather than in the U.S. 

 

"GOP Advances Its Border Security Bill After Months of Feuding and Revisions,"  New York Times, April 28, 2023

 

House Republicans are moving forward with a tough border security bill that would require continued construction of a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. Employers also would have to check the legal status of employees through an electronic system known as E-Verify. The bill also would reinstate a Trump era policy requiring asylum applicants to wait in detention facilities outside the United States while their claims are heard. Another provision would ban use of “CBP One,” a phone application to streamline processing of migrants at ports of entry. In addition, the bill would expedite deportation of unaccompanied minors and make visa overstays of more than 10 days a criminal offense. Business interests warn that the bill could create agricultural labor shortages threatening the food supply. 

 

"Telegram App is Blocked Across Brazil After Attacks," New York Times, April 28, 2023

 

A Brazilian judge has issued an order blocking the messaging app Telegram in the country. Authorities are investigating Neo-Nazi groups they say have used the app to incite school attacks. The judge also ordered Google and Apple to remove the messaging app from their stores in Brazil. The Federal Police have arrested 302 people suspected of threatening or planning school massacres. Another 1,738 cases are under investigation “The so-called antisemitic movement is acting in these networks,” said Brazilian justice minister Flavio Dino. “And we know that this is at the base of violence against our children, our teens.” 

 

"U.S. Asks Brazil to Extradite Alleged Russian Spy Who Posed as a D.C. Student," Washington Post, April 28, 2023

 

The United States and Russia have filed dueling requests with Brazilian authorities to extradite a Russian man who posed as a Brazilian student in Washington, D.C. Russia denies that the man, Sergey Cherkasov, is a secret agent. It says it wants him back because he is a heroin trafficker. Both Brazilian and American authorities regard that as a ruse. The U.S. Department of Justice wants Cherkasov extradited to face espionage charges. American authorities are angry over the Russian arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Cherkasov is serving a 15-year-sentence in Brazil for fraud involved in creating a fictitious persona. Brazilian officials say they won’t rule on the extradition requests until investigating Cherkasov’s espionage activities in Brazil.  Cherkasov allegedly is part of a category of spies called “illegals,” who do 

not operate out of Russian embassies under diplomatic cover but instead spend years developing false identities that obscure any link to the Russian government. 

 

 

"Tiny Tesla Wannabe Fits Three, ‘But They Can’t Be Very Fat’," Wall Street Journal, April 27, 2023

 

Bolivia’s Quantum Motors is offering a car it says is well-suited to the traffic-choked streets of cities in the developing world – an electric vehicle the size of a golf cart that can run 60 miles on a charge, is easily parked, and costs $7,500. As such it’s well suited to the Latin American market of some 670 million people, its developer says. The car, which can be plugged into any outlet, is the first-ever Bolivian car. “We’re convinced that the development of electric vehicles in Latin America isn’t going to be with Teslas or Volkswagens,” says Carlos Soruco, one of Quantum’s founders. 

 

"Venezuela’s Guaidó Flies to U.S. Seeking ‘Refuge,'” Washington Post April 26, 2023

 

The opposition figure once seen as a Venezuelan politician who could oust its dictator Nicolás Maduro has flown to the United States saying he is seeking refuge there.  Once recognized by the U.S. and more than 50 other nations as Venezuela’s rightful leader, Juan Guaidó said he recently arrived in Columbia “on foot” but claimed he was expelled from the country. He expressed fear for his wife and two children who he said had been threatened and were in danger.  Guaidó, who arrived on a commercial flight into Miami, is among the seven million Venezuelans who have fled the country since 2015. The uprising he led in 2019 against Maduro collapsed after he called on soldiers to turn against the government, but few did.

 

"Are Yanomami Deaths Genocide?" Washington Post, April 24, 2023

 

The leaders of one of the largest indigenous groups in the Amazon say its very existence is in doubt because of malaria and malnutrition brought on by unchecked gold mining in their region.  Mining has poisoned their water and their fish with mercury, as well as depleting the population of animals they hunt. Critics of former President Jair Bolsonaro blame him for what they call genocide of the group. He crippled the environmental agency, they say, responsible for keeping gold miners out of the region where the Yanomami live. Investigators hope to charge Bolsonaro with genocide, which will require proving he intended to wipe out the Yanomami.  Critics say he favored doing so.

 

 

"White House Prepping for Migrant Surge, DHS Chief Says," Washington Post, April 21, 2023

 

The Biden administration is bracing for illegal crossings into the U.S; from Mexico to double to more than 11,000 per day after May 11, writes Nick Miroff. That’s the day the administration is ending emergency public health restrictions known as Title 42. The policy allows quick expulsions of migrants back to Mexico without the opportunity to seek asylum. Ending Title 42 will restore legal consequences needed to deter illegal entries, the administration says. It hopes to reduce the surge with a fast-track deportation process for those who don’t qualify for humanitarian entry.  But officials admit it will take time for deportations to have a deterrent effect. Title 42, adopted as a public health emergency measure in response to Covid, has been used since its adoption in March 2020 to  deny U.S. entry to more than two million refugees. 

"Mexico’s Lasting Embrace of a Potent and Notorious Spying Tool,“ New York Times, April 19, 2023

 

Mexico continues to use the world’s most advanced spyware against citizens who stand up against the state, including human rights activists probing the sudden disappearance in 2014 of 43 students who were en route to a protest. That’s the finding of a New York Times investigation that traced the continuing use of the Pegasus spyware in Mexico since its military became its first buyer from an Israeli firm, the NSO Group, more than a decade ago.  Pegasus can extricate all the information in a cell phone undetected and spy using its camera and microphone even if the phone is turned off. After its use against activists and journalists became a scandal in Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who came to power in 2018, promised to put a stop to what he called “illegal” spying. But the Times found that he did not. As recently as the second half of 2022 Pegasus infiltrated the cell phones of two leading human rights defenders who represent the victims of the disappearance. Experts say the military was using Pegasus to spy on the phones of those who abducted the students on the night they were abducted. It wasn't used to help find the students. The Mexican military has grown far more powerful in recent years. One of the activists whose phone was infected said “in the eyes of the armed forces, we represent a risk. They don’t want to lose the power they have accumulated.” 

 

"How to Stop the Mexican Cartels? Stop Supplying Them with Guns," Washington Post Opinion Page, April 18, 2023

 

U.S. politicians who advocate military action in Mexico to combat drug cartels instead are enabling them to amass arsenals, say Jonathan Lowy and Luis Moreno. Lowy is president of Global Action on Gun Violence and Moreno the former U.S. consul general in Moreno, Mexico.  The cartels push fentanyl that is killing thousands on both sides of the border. They torture and kill journalists to silence them. And they are largely responsible for as many as 100,000 Mexicans who have disappeared after being kidnapped and probably killed. But “sending in troops won’t help stop the violence and drug trafficking,” write Lowy and Moreno. To do that figures such as former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tex.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) “should support a ban on assault weapons and bulk sales, and greater accountability and enforcement against gun companies that supply cross-border traffickers.”

 

"Brazil’s Lula Goes His Own Way on World Stage to the West’s Consternation," Washington Post, April 14, 2023

 

Brazil’s new president is showing little concern over antagonizing the West on the global stage, write Moriah Balingit and Meaghan Tobin. Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva is strengthening economic ties with China and has refused to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, for example. He says that Ukraine also bears responsibility for the conflict by choosing to defend itself. Lula is aiding China’s effort to promote use  of the yuan in international trade rather than the Euro and the dollar. He also seeks Chinese investment in Brazil’s high tech capacity, including solar power facilities and the use of a satellite to monitor the Amazon rainforest. Recent agreements will spur sales of Brazilian beef and poultry in China. A Chinese electric car manufacturer is expected to take over a former Ford plant in the Brazilian state of Bahia.

 

"The Danger of Criticizing the King in López Obrador’s Mexico," Washington Post, April 11, 2023

 

The president of Mexico may not be an absolute ruler but he aspires to be one. Furious with his critics, he regularly denounces journalists, intellectuals and writers by name. He also indulges in slander and defamation, according to this opinion piece by Enrique Krauze, a Mexican historian.  He says anyone who criticizes him is part of a conspiracy to overthrow him, Krauze says of the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.  He writes that it may be only a matter of time before one of the president’s critics is murdered -- and  puts himself in the category of critic. 

 

 

 

"Biden Plans to Expand Health Care Coverage for DACA Immigrants," New York Times, April 16, 2023

 

The Biden administration announced it would allow DACA immigrants to sign up for health coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The Dreamers, nearly 600,000 immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, can sign up for Medicaid or subsidized coverage offered through the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges, known as marketplaces. The Times estimated the cost of the added coverage at less than $1 billion a year. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) blasted the expansion, saying “President Biden’s inflation has already hammered working families, and now the Democrats want our citizens to pay for new taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal immigrants as well.”

 

"DeSantis Seeks Tightest Clamp on Immigration in the Country," New York Times, April 11, 2023

 

Florida is likely to adopt in coming weeks the toughest state crackdown on undocumented immigrants in more than a decade, writes Miriam Jordan.  Among the measures: felony charges for sheltering, hiring, and transporting undocumented immigrants; requirements that hospitals report undocumented patients to the state; and invalidation of out-of-state driver’s licenses issued to undocumented immigrants. A big influx of migrants fleeing Haiti and Cuba has swelled the state’s population of undocumented people, already estimated at 800,000. As of March 31, immigration courts in Florida had 296,833 cases pending. Critics say the  crackdown will lead undocumented immigrants to avoid needed care, and harm the tourism, agricultural, and health care industries, leading to a shortage of caregivers for seniors, for example. 

 

 

"At a Price, El Salvador Stamps Out Its Gangs," New York Times, April 10, 2023

 

Homicides have plunged in El Salvador, once known as the hemisphere’s murder capital, writes Natalie Kitroeff. Observers credit a crackdown on gang violence by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, now one of the world’s most popular leaders with approval ratings around 90 percent. El Salvador declared a state of emergency in March 0f 2022 after a weekend rampage of violence by criminals that left more than 80 dead. The military jailed some 13,000 people in gang dominated areas. Mothers can now shop in markets and children play outside without fear of being bullied or assaulted by gangs. But innocent detainees report

horrifying conditions in the now-crowded prisons, including murders, beatings and starvation rations. Observers fear that Bukele’s autocratic approach will spread to other countries, undermining democracy there as well as in El Salvador.

 

"Barriers to Safety Net Add to Poverty for Children of Immigrants," New York Times, April 7, 2023

 

 

Children of immigrants, the fastest growing group of American youths, have poverty rates more than twice that of other American children but have less access to aid than do natives with the same incomes, writes Jason DeParle  of the New York Times. Immigrant children make up more than 40 percent of the nation’s poor children. Most are American citizens but about half have an undocumented parent, barring the entire household from some government benefits. Parents who immigrated legally face obstacles to aid such as waiting periods, language barriers and lack of knowledge about programs. “It’s a very stupid investment decision to exclude or discourage these children from getting our help,” Delores Acevedo-Garcia, a Brandeis University researcher, told the Times. “About 90 percent of these children are U.S. citizens, and even those who aren’t are likely to stay here until adulthood. They’ll be with us as our future workers, neighbors and taxpayers.” 

 

 

"4 Children Killed, 5 People Injured in Hatchet Attack at Brazil Day-care Center," Washington Post, April 6, 2023

 

A 24-year-old man attacked children with an axe in Brazil, killing four between the ages of 4 and 7 and injuring at least five other people. The man, whose motivation was unknown, then rode to a police station and turned himself in.  The attack in the town of Blumenau 370 miles southeast of São Paulo was one of an increasing number of such assaults in schools in the recent past. The Brazilian government plans to create a working group headed by the Ministry of Education “to discuss a culture of peace and nonviolence,” the story says. Of 24 attacks on schools in which people were killed or wounded since 2002, 15 have occurred since 2019. Forty-five people were killed, 31 students and 7 teachers among them.

 

 

"Columbian Drug Traffickers Want a Voice in State-Building," Washington Post, April 6, 2023

 

Columbia’s most powerful drug trafficking organization, known as AGC, wants a seat at the table with the government. The armed group is a force “with control over a massive swath of the country and the most important routes for moving cocaine to the United States,” the Post reports. Columbian authorities and others say the organization has gained control through “forced displacement, extortion, killings of police officers and recruitment of minors." 

Reportedly, the group forced 4,380 people in the northern department of Chocó to move because of territorial disputes. But it also has helped fund construction of a road and reservoir and paid health care costs. And it provides employment to those willing to take up arms on its behalf. “It opens up a door, economically, that you can’t find elsewhere,” said one member.  

The  government sees the group strictly as a criminal organization. But “no matter the government’s position, the AGC will not be easily dismissed and certainly not easily vanquished,” the story says. “Its influence and its money are everywhere.” 

 

"Death and Murky Justice on Arizona Ranch," New York Times, April 4, 2023

 

The fatal shooting of an unarmed migrant on an Arizona ranch is adding to border tensions in that state. The sheriff’s office in Santa Clara County says it arrested the owner of the ranch, George Alan Kelly, for the murder of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea. But conservative ranchers and immigration critics around the country responded with outrage, decrying what they say is an invasion of migrants and drugs along the border. Kelly’s defenders around the country have raised $425,000 for his defense. Kelly’s lawyer disputed that her client fired the fatal shot and said Cuen-Buitimea must have been a smuggler because a two-way radio was found with his body. But the sheriff’s office said the shooting victim appeared to have been heading to Phoenix to find work as a roofer and that there was no evidence he was involved in smuggling. 

 

"8 Apparent Migrants Recovered Dead in Canada Near U.S Border," Washington Post, April 2, 2023

 

Canadian authorities recovered the bodies of eight people in a marshy area near the U.S. border, saying they thought they were from two families of Romanian and Italian descent who were trying to cross illegally into the United States. They said they are investigating the circumstances surrounding the deaths. Almost 40,000 asylum seekers crossed into Canada from the U.S. in 2022, the most since Canada began keeping track in 2017. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is under growing pressure from the opposition Conservative Party to crack down on illegal immigration. The bodies were found in an area near New York state that includes the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Two children were among the dead. 

 

"An NYC Official Receiving Migrants Used to Be One," The Washington Post, April 2, 2023

 

New York City’s Commissioner for Immigrant Affairs can relate to the people who are part of the influx of undocumented immigrants coming into the city because he used to be one of them. Mayor Eric Adams put Manuel Castro, 38, in charge of responding to that surge, one of the city’s most pressing problems, writes Post reporter Joanna Slater. The city established nearly 100 emergency shelters in hotels and other temporary housing centers. One activist said the city’s response was too slow and inadequate but expressed great respect for Castro, who says by sharing the story of his own struggles as an undocumented immigrant he can impart hope. “So many of them, they just feel depleted and they want to give up,” Castro said.