News Summaries in December 2024

“Most of Puerto Rico Is Darkened by New Year’s Eve 

Blackout,” New York Times, Dec. 31, 2024

A blackout in Puerto Rico early the morning of Dec. 31 left nearly 90 percent of its 1.4 million utility customers in darkness. By the end of the day nearly half of them had power. Early indications were that the cause was a fault on an underground line said Luma, the private Canadian American consortium that took control of the energy grid in 2021. “Puerto Rico has faced a series of blackouts since 2017, when Hurricane Maria severely damaged the island, including its power grid,” the Times said. The latest blackout seemed much larger than the outages that occurred this past summer. In June, 350,000 customers were left without power. In August, after Hurricane Ernesto, 700,000 lost electricity. A Luma spokesman said the blackout started at a control hub where electricity is directed from a power plant into transmission lines. Luma took over operation of the grid from Puerto Rico’s bankrupt public utility. Governor-elect Jenniffer González has promisted to appoint an “energy czar” to oversee improvement of the energy system. A member of the White House environmental advisory council said Luma had not made good use of $20 billion in funding Congress allocated for Puerto Rico’s energy system. Too much money has been spent on initiatives such as installing smart meters that do not address the issue of blackouts. A Luma spokesman said the job of upgrading the energy grid is a “monumental” task but is progressing. He noted that the company has installed 17,000 poles to better withstand the strong winds that often hit the island. 

“Mexico Tests Cellphone App Allowing Migrants to Send Alerts If They Are About to Be Detained in U.S.,” CNN World, Dec. 27, 2024

The Mexican government is developing a cellphone app migrants can use to warn relatives and local consulates if they think they are about to be detained by U.S. immigration authorities. The app, a response to incoming U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to carry out mass deportations, “appears to be working very well,” said Juan Ramón de la Fuente, Mexico’s secretary of foreign affairs. “U.S. authorities are  obliged to give notice to home-country consulates when a foreign citizen is detained,” CNN World said. Mexico says it has increased consular staff and legal aid to assist those migrants involved in the deportation process. Mexico estimates that there are 4.8 million Mexicans in the U.S. without legal residency or proper papers. 

“Panama’s President Rejects Lowering Fees Due to Trump’s Threats: ‘The Answer Is No,’” Latin Times, Dec. 26, 2024

The president of Panama said Dec. 26 that the fees charged for crossing the Panama Canal would not be lowered despite a threat by incoming U.S. President Donald Trump to seize the canal if the charges aren’t reduced (see story below). “No. The answer is no,” said José Raúl Mulino. Fees are set through a public and open process and not at his whim, he said. Central American droughts in 2023 drastically lowered water levels in the reservoirs that feed the canal. The result was fewer daily crossings and higher fees for ships reserving a slot. Trump’s threat caused protests in Panama. Some protesters burned the American flag as well as an image of Trump. Their slogans included “Get out invading gringo” and “Donald Trump, public enemy of Panama." A video depicted a photo of Trump with the words “F*** TRUMP!” 

“Migrant Flow Through Darien Gap Drops 40% As Panama 

Closes Trails With Wired Fences,” Latin Times, Dec. 26, 2024

 

Panama says the flow of migrants through the Darien Gap jungle region connecting South America with North America has fallen 40 percent this year. The country has deployed troops and set up razor wire fences to funnel migrants into a single path through the 70 miles of the region. “By doing this, Panamanian officials say it is easier to track and create safer conditions for migrants traveling towards the U.S., facilitating identifying people who can be quickly deported,” said Latin Times reporter Héctor Rios Morales. Last year, 520,000 migrants traversed the treacherous gap, compared to about 300,000 this year. A Panamanian official said “we closed more than five clandestine routes which were used by organized crime to mobilize migrants from Colombia to Panama.” The  country also has obtained funding from the U.S. to deport migrants crossing the Gap. In the past six months it has sent about 40 flights of deportees back to countries in Africa and Asia. Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said the flow of migrants could increase without continuing U.S. support. Mulino expressed optimism the incoming Trump administration will provide that support despite tensions over fees Panama charges to use the Panama Canal. 

“How Mexican Cartels Test Fentanyl on Vulnerable People and Animals,” New York Times, Dec. 26, 2024

Global crackdowns on the synthetic opioid fentanyl have made it harder for cartels to find the ingredients they need to produce the lethal drug. “The original source, China,” write Times reporters Natalie Kitroeff and Paulina Villegas, “has restricted exports of the necessary raw ingredients, pushing the cartels to come up with new and extremely risky ways to maintain fentanyl production and potency.” Cartel operatives test their concoctions on homeless people in Mexico, offering up to $30 for example for anyone willing to inject themselves. A man at one homeless encampment said “when it’s really strong, it knocks you out or kills you.” He told the Times “the people here have died.” The criminals who make fentanyl for the cartels, called cooks, say they also inject rabbits and chickens. If the rabbits live more than 90 seconds the batch is too weak to be sold to Americans. If a batch is too weak cooks sometimes add the animal tranquilizer xylazine, known as “Tranq.” If an injected hen dies in the range between a  minute and a minute and a half, the batch is good. When substances are added less fentanyl is needed and the result is more product and more profit. A chemistry student recruited as a cook said mistakes are punished severely. “Armed men locked the offenders in rooms with rats and snakes and left them there for long stretches with no food or water,” the reporters said. Some cooks say a lethal batch gives them a marketing edge. Instead of being scared away, American users rush to buy it because they know it will get them high, experts say. Asked whether he feels guilty creating a drug that will cause so many people to die, a cartel boss said “if there weren’t all those people in the United States looking to get high, we wouldn’t sell anything. It’s their fault, not ours. We just take advantage of the situation.” Cooks work under brutal  conditions. They may get sick from exposure to fumes but get screamed at if they take too long a break to get fresh air. One said he’s never fully told his family about his job. He disappears for weeks at a time to work and then comes home with a lot of money. ‘He believes the money and the fear evident in his expression deter any questions,” the Times said. “There is no retirement here,” the cook said, explaining that the cartel likely would kill him if he tries to stop. “There is just work and death.” 

“Trump’s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: Not a Joke This Time,” New York Times,” Dec. 23, 2024

In recent days President-elect Donald J. Trump has made it clear that he has designs for territorial expansion and isn’t joking about it. He accused Panama Dec. 21 of price-gouging American ships crossing the Panama Canal and said that unless it lowers its fees, he would abandon the treaty negotiated by the Carter administration turning over control of the canal zone to Panama. “This complete ‘rip-off’ of our country will immediately stop” he said concerning a Jan. 1 planned increase in fees. Trump suggested that the canal could fall under the control of China, which is the second largest user of the canal. A company based in Hong Kong controls two ports near the canal. President José Raúl Mulino of Panama responded that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zones is part of Panama, and it will continue to be. Our country’s sovereignty and independence are not negotiable.”  Trump also suggested he will wrest control of Greenland from Denmark, which owns it. “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.” Times reporters David E. Sanger and Lisa Friedman said Trump made clear that his offer to buy Greenland could “become a deal the Danes cannot refuse.” They wrote that “he appears to covet Greenland both for its strategic location at a time when the melting of Arctic ice is opening new commercial and naval competition and for its reserves of rare earth minerals needed for advanced technology.” A former State Department official under both Presidents Clinton and Obama said Greenland has tremendous undeveloped natural resources including 43 of 50 rare earth elements used to make electric vehicles, wind turbines and other clean technology. “Greenland is ours,” replied Prime Minister Mute B. Egede. “We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose out long struggle for freedom.” [Editorial comment: a remarkable element of the way Sanger and Friedman have written this story is that it extensively explores Trump’s motivations for acquiring Greenland and suggests economic and military reasons it might occur and even goes so far as to suggest that it could become a deal Denmark can’t refuse. Though the reporters say that it’s Trump making that clear, so that this is Trump’s view, the tone of the story suggests that this could in fact become an offer Denmark can’t refuse. The reporters do discuss somewhat the violations of sovereignty that would be involved but devote remarkably little coverage to the backlash Trump would face by violating democratic traditions of respecting sovereignty and the right of self-determination and fostering international cooperation to further those goals]. 

“Tensions Over Essequibo Region Resurface as Venezuela Completes a Bridge to a Disputed Border Space,” Dec. 21, 2024, Yahoo! News

Tension between Venezuela and its neighbor Guyana has reappeared following construction by the former of a military bridge. Guyana’s foreign ministry said the bridge connects the Venezuelan mainland to a small military base that Venezuela built illegally on Guyana’s side of an island called Ankoko shared by both countries. Guyana sees the move as part of a Venezuelan strategy to annex the Essequibo region, which makes up two-thirds of  Guyana and  has fabulous untapped oil reserves. “Last year, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro threatened to annex the region by force, following a referendum in which Venezuelan voters were asked if the Essequibo should be turned into a Venezuelan state,” wrote Associated Press reporter Bert Wilkinson. Leaders of Caribbean countries, Brazil, and the United Nations then convened an emergency summit on the island of St. Vincent. There, “they agreed to resolve the dispute through peaceful means, and to avoid taking actions that would raise tensions.” Guyana Foreigner Minister Hugh Todd said the building of the bridge violated the St. Vincent agreement and Guyana’s sovereignty. All personnel, facilities or equipment built or brought there by Venezuela must be removed, he said.  The World Court is reviewing the border dispute. 

“Shamans Refuse to Evacuate Precarious Cliff-top Shacks in Bolivia Despite Government Order,” Associated Press, Dec. 19, 2024

One hundred shamans who pray in huts on the  eroding sides of mountains surrounding the Bolivian capital of La Paz  are refusing a government order to leave for their own safety. Erosion has accelerated in recent years because of climate change. “A month ago, a mudslide buried an entire neighborhood and killed a girl,” wrote AP reporter Carlos Valdez. The Bolivian government then ordered that the area be evacuated. Shamans, however, who earn money providing services in the huts such as reading the future from cocoa leaves and playing cards, say that they are performing rituals to keep the huts from danger and that nothing has happened to them for more than 60 years. “The area has been sacred to the Aymara Indigenous people since pre-Hispanic times,” Valdez said. “This is solid ground; it will not fall,” said one shaman. “That is what the cocoa leaf and Pachamama tell us, “  he said, referring to the Indigenous term for Mother Earth. 

“Trump Border Czar Threatens to Separate Undocumented Parents from US Citizen Kids: ‘They Put Themselves in This Position,’ Latin Times, Dec. 19, 2024

Undocumented parents of U.S. citizens will be deported, says Tom Homan, the man President-elect Donald Trump has selected to be his “border czar.” Parents then can decide whether their children will stay in the United States without them. “The bottom line is, having a child in this country does not make you immune from our laws,” Homan told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins December 18. “Their child can stay and live with a relative, they can stay with the other parent, or they can take them with them,” Homan said. “We don’t deport U.S. citizens. But they put themselves in the position; we didn’t.” Trump came under fire in his first administration for a policy in which children were placed in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services while their undocumented parents were deported or imprisoned. The intentional breaking up of families was a method used by the Trump administration to discourage illegal immigration. 

“U.S. Employers of Immigrants Fear an Exodus,” New York Times, Dec. 17, 2024

 

President-elect Donald Trump’s promised mass deportation of undocumented immigrants could wreak havoc with the staffing agencies that big corporations rely on to meet their need for employees. “The New York Times reported in November that staffing firms were among the top employers at work sites inspected for immigration violations over the past decade,” wrote Times reporter Steve Eder. “Now with Mr. Trump’s victory, some firms are fearing the worst.” Companies like FedEx, Tesla and Google rely on the staffing agencies.  According to the Times, staffing agencies often shielded partner companies from responsibility for hiring undocumented workers. The threat of mass deportation could cause the kind of disruption that hit the electronics manufacturer Jabil in 2021, when it was relying on dozens of undocumented workers contracted from a staffing agency to power manufacturing sites near Silicon Valley. Jabil fired them when it discovered they were undocumented, which it said set off a mass exodus from its work force requiring herculean efforts to find replacements. Jabil fell behind on existing orders and bids for new business, costing it an estimated $50 million. Toby Malara of the American Staffing Association urged the Trump administration against mass deportations. Business leaders want to avoid a scenario where the administration would “round up a bunch of people who shouldn’t be here and deport them to Mexico.” That “could be catastrophic for the economy.” 

“An Immigrant Felt He Belonged in the U.S., Until Now,” New York Times, Dec. 16, 2024

 

Jaime Cachua, a 33-year-old undocumented immigrant who had lived in the United States since the age of one, sat at his kitchen table in rural Georgia talking to the man he trusted most in a crisis: 45-year-old Sky Atkins, his father-in-law and the family patriarch. “There’s nothing to stop them from rounding me up once he takes office,” Cachua told Atkins, a Trump supporter. Cachua’s best chance to stay in the U.S. with his American-born wife and four children was a new program for immigrants like himself who were married to U.S. citizens and had lived in the country for at least 10 years without committing any crimes. But that program had just been struck down by a Trump-appointed federal judge. Atkins replied that he had voted for Trump and believes in much of what he says. “It’s about protecting our rights as a sovereign country. We need to shut down the infiltration on the border. It’s not about you.” Cachua said: “It is about me. That’s the thing I don’t understand.” He’d been living in the city of Rome, Georgia, since his family drove with him across the border because his mother found work at a chicken-processing plant. He'd done whatever he could to pass as an American starting at the age of five – no baggy clothes, no bandannas, no lowrider cars, no accent, no speaking Spanish outside the home. He now worked 50 hours a week at a local car dealership, was a regular churchgoer, drove below the speed limit, paid his taxes on time. He had a work permit because of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and Trump recently had shown a willingness to work with Democrats to help DACA recipients stay in the U.S. But Times reporter Eli Saslow noted that Trump “had also targeted DACA for cancellation during his first term, and his allies were continuing to challenge the program with a pending lawsuit that seemed destined for the Supreme Court.” Cachua now found himself surrounded by Trump supporters, the people he had grown up with and who liked him but whose votes helped to put him at risk. To Sky Atkins the border issue wasn’t an abstraction. Although the arrival of thousands of immigrants had revitalized Rome, he saw MS-13 as trying to take over whole neighborhoods. He was a corrections officer who dealt with gangs, drugs and inmates sometimes from Latin America. But he considered his son-in-law a devout Christian, a great father and a model family man, and practically an American. Trump is “not actually coming after people like you. Nobody’s putting you on a bus unless they get by me,” Atkins said. But an immigration lawyer Cachua and his wife Jennifer consulted said “even an easy case just got very hard.” Trump, the lawyer said, had equivocated over DACA over the years and was filling his administration with officials eager for mass deportations. Cachua was advised to apply for a travel document that would allow him to leave the U.S. and re-enter lawfully and then apply for citizenship. The lawyer acknowledged that Cachua might get deported in the middle of that process but warned that the longer he waited the bigger that chance. He outlined a plan that would drive Cachua and his family thousands of dollars deeper in debt. Cachua noted that part of the cost would be his airfare. Saslow described Jennifer’s reaction this way: ‘”And my airfare. I’m not going to be separated, because if something goes wrong, and they don’t let you back in…’ Her voice trailed off and she started to cry.” 

“As Trump Threatens Mass Deportations, Central America Braces for an Influx of Vulnerable Migrants,” Associated Press, Dec. 16, 2024

 

Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador could be among the first and most heavily affected countries by mass deportations, says a former Immigration & Customs Enforcement official. After Mexico, they have the largest number of people living illegally in the U.S. Countries like Venezuela refuse to accept deportation flights. That means the Trump administration may target migrants from those three Central American countries “who have removal orders but no criminal record, in an effort to rapidly increase deportation numbers,” writes AP reporter Megan Janetsky. “Hondurans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans need to be very, very nervous because (Trump officials) are going to press the bounds of the law,” said the former ICE official, Jason Houser. Among those affected are people like Norma, a 69-year-old woman who was recently deported back to Honduras. She never imagined leaving her home country but “then came the anonymous death threats to her and her children and the armed men who showed up at her doorstep threatening to kill her, just like they had killed one of her relatives days earlier,” wrote Janetsky. At the end of October, she spent $10,000 for a one-way trip north with her daughter and granddaughter. But their requests for asylum in the U.S. were denied and they were deported back to Honduras. Now she’s back within the reach of the same gang. “They can find us in every corner of Honduras,” she said. “We’re praying for God’s protection, because we don’t expect anything from the government.”  A Honduran official said “there’s very little here for deportees.” They “are the last to be taken care of.” Since 2015 Honduras has received about half a million deportees, who climb down from planes and buses and are greeted with coffee and small allotments of food and toiletries. “While some breathe a sigh of relief, free from harsh conditions in U.S. detention facilities, others cry, gripped with panic,” says Janetsky. An estimated 560,000 Hondurans live in the U.S. without legal status, of which about 150,000 can be tracked down and quickly expelled. Up to 40 percent of the deportees return to the U.S. Aid organizations in Honduras like the Mennonite Social Action Commission try to help deportees but are already stretched thin. Meanwhile Honduras depends heavily on remittances from the U.S. and its economy faces a severe hit if they are cut off. Cesar Muñoz, an official with the commission, said “we’re at the brink of a new humanitarian crisis.” 

“South America’s Most Dangerous Gang Invades the Amazon Forest,” Washington Post, Dec. 16, 2024

 

Organized crime groups in Latin America, says the Washington Post, “have vastly expanded their influence, corroding the region’s democracies, strangling commerce and propelling thousands of people to the border.” The Post is launching a series exploring the impact of the groups, starting with this report by Terrence McCoy, Marina Dias and Julia Ledur. It looks at how the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), one of the world’s most feared gangs, is bringing violence, prostitution and environmental degradation to a remote region of the Amazon that must be preserved to prevent catastrophic global warming, scientists say. The PCC last year generated $1 billion in annual revenue using an army of 42,000 members. “In pursuit of natural resources and refuge, the group is penetrating distant territories and bringing some of South America’s most dangerous actors into direct contact with its most isolated and vulnerable peoples,” the Post said. In the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, the PCC was part of a surge in illegal gold mining “that has poisoned swaths of the forest with mercury, unleashed a wave of malaria, famine, and violence, and been blamed by officials in the deaths of 538 Yanomami children younger than 5.” The Brazilian government last year launched an operation to remove thousands of illegal miners but encountered fierce resistance. PCC militants are looking for Indigenous collaborators to blame, and distrust and suspicion is spreading among the Indigenous population in the region. The PCC also is involved in illegal logging and land grabbing, corrupting local communities on protected land. “The gang members can stay hidden, many of them fugitives of the justice system, without alternatives but to hide out in the forest,” a government official said. “They find a lucrative environment there to traffic drugs and mine gold.” 

“U.S. Couple on Holiday Visit Are Shot and Killed in Western Mexico,” New York Times, Dec. 13, 2024

It was another example of the violence that has marred the first few months in office of President Claudia Sheinbaum -- two Americans were shot dead by gunmen the night of Dec. 11 in western Mexico.  The couple, identified only as Rafael C. and María Gloria A., had arrived from California in late November to spend the holidays with family. They were killed in the town of Angamacutiro in the state of Michoacán. The area has seen several other high-profile killings and abductions and is one in which gangs have battled to dominate drug-trafficking routes and the local economy, wrote Times reporter Emiliano Rodriguez Mega. He described the latest killings as “a setback to the Mexican government’s efforts to curb the violence gripping several regions in the country.” A turf war in the northern  state of Sinaloa, the beheading of a mayor, and the fatal shooting of migrants by Mexican soldiers are among other incidents that have drawn attention to violence in Mexico since Sheinbaum “was voted in on promises to tackle the bloodshed racking the  country from north to south.” Sheinbaum told Mexican state governors at a meeting Dec. 10 in Acapulco that “rest assured we are going to bring crime rates down.” Hers is a fourfold strategy: keep the young from turning to crime by keeping them in school or putting them in jobs; strengthen the Mexican federal police and state and local police forces; emphasize intelligence and investigations that lead to high-profile arrests; and improve coordination among federal and state authorities including prosecutors. The day after her meeting with the governors “gunmen shot and killed a senior judge as he stepped outside a court building in Acapulco,” the Times observed. 

“Convicted for Making Racial Slurs, She Faces Eight Years in Prison,” Washington Post, Dec. 13, 2024

 

By her own admission, it was racist – social media provocateur Day McCarthy called the four-year-old adopted Black daughter of two White celebrities in Brazil a “monkey.” McCarthy, who describes herself as half Black, told the Post: “I say what’s on my mind.” Seven years after her bigoted attack on Títi, the daughter of TV stars Bruno Gagliasso and Giovanna Ewbank, McCarthy has been sentenced to eight years and nine months in prison. The 35-year-old McCarthy, who lives in Paris and no longer posts much online, is appealing for a reduction of the sentence, the severest  penalty in Brazilian history for the crime of racism. The sentence is an example of the increasing willingness of countries to put people in jail for racist speech. It has also happened in South Africa, Belgium and Spain, where three men were given eight-month prison sentences for yelling racist taunts at a Brazilian soccer player. Brazil is a deeply diverse country where the 2020 George Floyd protests led the country to account for its history as a top spot for the arrival of enslaved Africans. Criminal prosecutions for racist speech went up more than five-fold there between 2020 and 2023 when they reached a total of 4,871. McCarthy, who gained notoriety through online attacks including of the children of celebrities, said she was protected by her right to free speech. She said she was the target of racist and abusive language as a child in Brazil and expressed fury at racial online attacks against as her notoriety grew. “I want to understand how you fake people and suck-ups, who criticize my appearance, because I don’t have blue eyes and straight hair and a beautiful nose — the type of beauty imposed by society — are now out there, on Bruno Gagliasso’s Instagram, complimenting this [girl],” she said. But Brazil has a narrower definition of freedom of expression.  Threats against democracy and government institutions are considered illegal, as are personal attacks that offend a person’s honor. And racist speech has been illegal for decades. 

“Recent Stream of Immigrants Is Largest Ever,” New York Times, Dec. 12, 2023

The recent immigration surge is the largest in U.S. history, bigger than the great immigration boom of the late 1800s and early 1900s, according to a New York Times analysis. The number of people coming to the U.S. minus the number leaving averaged 2.4 million per year from 2021 to 2023, the Congressional Budget Office said. Total net migration during the Biden administration is likely to top 8 million. As a result, the percentage of the U.S. population born in another country has reached a new high -- 15.2 percent in 2023. “The previous high was 14.8 percent, in 1890,” wrote Times reporter David Leonhardt. Probably the biggest factor fueling the increase was the Biden administration’s welcoming immigration policy. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Leonhardt noted, Biden said “We’re a nation that says, ‘If you want to flee, and you’re fleeing oppression, you should come.’” But another important cause of the surge was foreign turmoil – in Haiti, Ukraine and Venezuela. Among the consequences of the influx was a drop in support for Democrats at the ballot box as communities struggled to accommodate the arrival of migrants. But contrary to Republican claims that immigrants fueled a crime wave, crime fell nationwide as the immigrant population grew, reflecting the fact that immigrants historically commit crimes at a lower rate than people born in the U.S. The lower wages paid to immigrants meant lower-cost services for Americans. On the negative side, the influx put pressure on social services and meant more competition for jobs. Also, the Congressional Budget Office “has concluded that wage growth for Americans who did not attend college will be lower than it otherwise would have been for the next few years because of the recent surge,” the Times said. It’s likely though that the surge has ended because of a Biden crackdown at the border earlier this year and the incoming Trump administration’s vow to get even tougher at the border. “There is a historical echo with a century ago,” Leonhardt noted. “The immigration wave of the late 1800s and early 1990s also sparked a political backlash, leading to a 1924 law that tightly restricted immigration. Those restrictions remained largely in place for more than four decades.” 

“In Milei’s Argentina, Economic Albatross is Tamed But Life Is Much Harder,” New York Times, Dec. 12, 2024

A year after taking office President Javier Milei is viewed favorably by 56 percent of  people in Argentina despite brutal cuts to everything from soup kitchens to subsidies for public transit, groceries and heating bills. The cuts have pushed more than five million people into poverty. However, those cuts “also helped Mr. Milei make remarkable progress on a daunting task: reining in the world’s highest inflation rate,” the Times said. When he became president monthly inflation was 12.8 percent but now has dropped to 2.4 percent. Also, government revenue exceeds spending for the first time in 16 years. And after contracting for three consecutive quarters the economy is stabilizing and may start slowly growing. The Bank of America says Milei’s stabilization plan “is working better than expected.” The International Monetary Fund forecasts an inflation rate of 45 percent in 2025 compared to 211 percent in 2023 – what it calls “impressive progress.” But many Argentines have cut spending on staples such as milk and bread. Beef consumption has fallen to its lowest level in 28 years. The poverty rate climbed from 40 percent to 53 percent in the first six months of the year. Cuts have led to big demonstrations over pension reductions, higher prices and slashed university budgets. A retired taxi driver told the Times it troubled him that Milei “is so popular when there are so many of us who are suffering.” Mariel Fornoni, a political analyst, summed it up this way: “People feel there are certain things that had to be done. Then, there’s the question of how much their wallets can take.” 

“Brazil President Lula to Undergo Second Operation After Emergency Brain Surgery,” The Guardian, Dec. 11, 2024

The president of Brazil was scheduled to undergo Dec. 12  what his doctor described as a low-risk minimally invasive procedure to lessen the risk of future brain bleeds. The “complementary procedure” will follow emergency surgery performed earlier in the week to stem a brain bleed that doctors said resulted from a fall in the shower in October. His medical team said 79-year-old President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva underwent the first procedure without complications and has suffered no neurological impairment. 

 “Trump Plans to Scrap Policy Restricting ICE Arrests at Churches, Schools and Hospitals,” NBC News, Dec. 11, 2024

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will no longer be blocked from acting on their own to arrest undocumented immigrants in sensitive locations such as churches, schools and hospitals under a policy change the incoming Trump administration says it will make on its first day in power. Arrests at funerals, weddings and public demonstrations also would be permitted. To some extent arrests at such sensitive locations are occurring now but only with the approval of a supervisor. The policy barring arrests at sensitive locations began in 2011. “It was meant to allow undocumented people to operate freely in certain public areas with the idea that doing so will immediately benefit not just them, but also the larger community,” said NBC reporters Julia Ainslee and Didi Martinez. Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union said “we don’t want people with contagious diseases too scared to go to the hospital or children going uneducated because of poorly considered deportation policies.” The idea of making arrests in sensitive locations first began circulating in Project 2025, the game plan prepared by the Heritage Foundation for a new Trump administration. Some church leaders appear to be reconsidering their policies of providing sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. “A lot of churches, faith communities are very concerned that there could be backlash” for continuing to provide sanctuary,  a deacon at an Arizona church told NBC News.  The policy change could mean an end to people avoiding deportation by staying in churches for long periods. At least 46 people were staying in churches in 15 states in 2019 according to a tally by the faith-based organization Church World Service. 

“Brazilian President in Intensive Care After Emergency Brain Surgery,” The Guardian, Dec. 10, 2024

 

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is recovering after what his medical team said was successful emergency surgery to drain a brain bleed. His doctor said the 79-year-old Lula “is now stable, speaking normally, eating, and will remain under observation in the coming days.” The bleed was attributed to a fall Lula had in October while taking a shower. He was admitted to a hospital in Brasília the night of Dec. 9 after complaining of a headache and when the hemorrhage was detected was flown some 600 miles to the top Brazilian hospital for the operation. He is expected to return to Brasília early next week. If all goes well Lula will be able to resume air travel including international trips, his doctor said.

“Almost 200 Massacred in Haiti as Vodou Practitioners Reportedly Targeted Reportedly Targeted,” The Guardian, Dec. 9, 2024 

About 200 people were massacred over the Dec. 7-8 weekend in the Cité Soleil neighborhood of Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince -- at least 110 of whom were reportedly targeted for execution by a powerful gang leader because they were practitioners of Vodou [the term for voodoo preferred by scholars]. Most of those killed were over the age of 60 but the dead included young people who tried to intervene on their behalf. The gang leader reportedly was convinced his son’s illness had been caused by followers of Vodou, which was brought to Haiti by enslaved Africans and  includes elements of Catholicism and other religions. The gang leader “decided to cruelly punish all elderly people and Vodou practitioners who, in his imagination, would be capable of sending a bad spell on the son,” according to a civil organization called the Committee for Peace and Development, the Guardian said. Its story came from a dispatch by the Agence France-Press news service. Gang members identified victims in their homes and brought them to the leader’s stronghold to be executed. The committee said the bodies of those massacred were mutilated and burned in the street. Gangs now control most of Haiti’s capital.  Gang-related violence is soaring following the overthrow earlier this year of the prime minister and continues unabated despite the presence of a Kenyan-led police support mission.  A United Nations official said 5,000 people have been killed this year in Haiti. 

“Hundreds More Migrants Have Died in Rio Grande Crossings Than U.S., Mexico Reported,” Washington Post, Dec. 8, 2024

Hundreds more people have died in the Rio Grande crossing from Mexico into the United States than the government of either country has reported, according to an investigation by the Post, an investigative news outfit called Lighthouse Reports, and the Mexican newspaper El Universal. “And nowhere in Texas have more people died than in Eagle Pass, where Republican Gov. Gregg Abbott’s $11 billion border security initiative, Operation Lone Star, is concentrated,” said the Post. At least 1,107 people drowned trying to cross the river in the seven years from 2017 to 2023. Deaths increased along with a record surge in 2022 in people trying to enter the U.S. A growing number of women were among the dead. One in ten was a child. Many people chose to try to cross at Eagle Pass because it’s across the river from a part of Mexico thought to be safer than other regions controlled by criminal gangs. “But the river there has a significant current in certain areas, and gets deeper as people reach the midpoint,” the Post said. “Weeds and rocks can make it difficult to get one’s footing.” To deter crossings, Abbott ordered the installation of razor wire, towering shipping containers, and giant buoys strung together. That led to more crossings at other more challenging parts of the river. More bodies began washing up away from the downtown area. Abbott denies the barriers contributed to the deaths, saying the intent is to keep migrants from entering the river in the first place. He blames the Biden administration for the deaths  with loose policies that encourage people to make the unsafe trip to cross the border. Gang violence, chronic poverty and political instability grew in their home countries, leading more families to try to cross than in the past when it was largely just men. A local official said “we always ask them why – why risk their children? And they always tell us they’d rather die here, in the river, than back in their countries.” 

“A Major Cocaine Transit Country is Halting U.S. Antidrug Cooperation,” Washington Post, Dec. 6, 2024

The government of Paraguay has decided to end cooperation between its antidrug agency and U.S. investigators, a decision observers say will thwart key joint investigations between the two countries intended to stop drug trafficking. The decision is “a significant blow to U.S. efforts to curb organized crime in a country where cocaine trafficking has surged,” wrote Post reporters Kevin Sieff and Samantha Schmidt. “Paraguay has become a major hub for cocaine shipments from Bolivia to Europe,” they noted. The joint team of U.S. and Paraguayan investigators has played a key role in record-setting drug seizures in Paraguay. The decision jeopardizes the search for Sebastián Marset, a “fugitive drug kingpin who bankrolled professional soccer teams across South America and inserted himself  into the starting lineups.” Paraguayan officials said cooperative efforts with the U.S. will be redirected to include the police rather than the antidrug agency. Some former Paraguayan officials said the move is designed to shield from U.S. investigators Paraguayan politicians who have become involved in the drug trade.  “They are cutting off the legs of the country’s best investigators to protect themselves,” a former official said concerning the decision coming from the top of the Paraguayan government. 

"Many Targeted for Removal by Trump Can’t Be Deported, ICE data Shows," Washington Post, Dec. 6, 2024

Almost half of the 1.4 million people with pending deportation orders can’t be deported, one of several obstacles to President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan. “Some orders can’t be carried out because the would-be deportee’s home country won’t take them or limits cooperation”  with U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE), said Post reporter Nick Miroff. “Others identified for deportation are serving prison terms, or have received a reprieve or deferral from an immigration judge, due to a medical condition, a credible persecution threat or another extenuating factor.” Trump aides have said criminals or those with pending deportation orders will be the first priority for deportation on Jan. 20 when Trump is inaugurated. Republican lawmakers plan to move a spending bill through Congress early next year that would increase ICE’s budget and staffing. But a funding increase wouldn’t immediately boost staffing because it takes 18 to 24 months to recruit, train and deploy a new officer.  Another complicating factor is that home countries may not be able to take many deportees. Venezuela, Nicaragua and China limit or refuse ICE deportation flights. Cooperative countries like Guatemala and Honduras may not have space or staff to accommodate planeloads of deportees. There also are limits on the number of aircraft available for deportation. Worksite raids or street arrests require weeks of planning and coordination with local police. In addition, a number of cities, counties and other jurisdictions have sanctuary policies limiting cooperation with ICE. “Going out and arresting  people in the community is very difficult and resource-intensive,” an ICE official told the Post. “Without getting more cooperation from sanctuary jurisdictions, I see increases, but I don't see crazy numbers." Officials say that at first at least, they expect a few hundred thousand annual deportations, not millions.  

“Spain to Enshrine Gay Marriage and Abortion Rights Into Its Constitution So ‘They Cannot Be Undone in the Future,” The Olive Press, Dec. 6, 2024

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has vowed to add abortion rights and gay marriage to the constitution “so that no one can touch them in the future.” Sanchez said in a Dec. 6 statement in parliament that the rights need to be protected “against a reactionary force which calls into question rights as important as abortion, marriage between persons of the same sex…and the reevalution of pensions.” Leading up to the next general election in 2027, Sanchez promised to inspire people to vote for a Spain with “more social cohesion, job growth and reduction of inequalities."

“Texas’ Squeeze on the Border Is a ‘Model’ for Trump,” New York Times, Dec. 5, 2024

Texas has a newly built camp for its National Guard, whose mission to stop the influx of migrants coming over the border from Mexico looks a lot like a military deployment. Near the camp,  “a line of buoy barriers in the Rio Grande puts migrants at risk of drowning,” writes Times reporter J. David Goodman. Strung along the edge of the river is concertina wire that often cuts and gashes border crossers. State police regularly patrol the brush arresting migrants. “This is a model we can take across the country” says Tom Homan, named by President-elect Donald Trump as his “border czar.” The Texas crackdown may be a key part of Trump’s plan to declare a national emergency and enlist the military to carry out a massive deportation of undocumented migrants. State land commissioner Dawn Buckingham has offered the effort 1,400 acres of state land in south Texas to serve as the site of a detention camp. She also has identified possible sites around El Paso and says “we’d be happy to oblige” the Trump administration if it wants sites near Austin or Dallas or Houston. The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has extended a buoy barrier along the Rio Grande since Trump won the November election. His “Operation Lone Star” crackdown has pushed “the boundaries of what a state can do to enforce immigration laws, an area reserved by the Constitution in most cases to the federal government,” writes Goodman. Although Abbott’s program to bus some 120,000 migrants to cities led by Democrats -- such as Denver, New York and Chicago -- has largely stopped because there aren’t enough migrants crossing to fill the buses, that transportation network could be revived to deport migrants from inland cities, says Kristin Etter of the Texas Immigration Law Council. “They could just turn those buses around and bus immigrants from blue cities to Texas,” she says. “Everything that they’ve done under Operation Lone Star is just a prototype for how to round up immigrants, put them in harsh conditions, pretend that you’re going to provide some level of due process and then coerce people to accept a deportation.”  

“Hispanic Democratic Senators Push Biden for Stronger Policies to Protect Immigrants as Trump Era Looms,” Latin Times, Dec. 5, 2024

Three Hispanic Democratic senators have called on President Joe Biden to takes steps before he leaves office to protect certain immigrants from losing their legal status. They urged him to strengthen the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program and to speed renewals for people allowed to remain in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, wrote Latin Times reporter Sana Kahn. The TPS program grants temporary legal immigration status to people from specified countries because of armed conflict or natural disasters  or other circumstances where they face great danger. For example, Salvadorans with TPS have been living in the U.S. for over 23 years, with both Democratic and Republican administrations renewing the designation. DACA lets undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children be temporarily protected from deportation and qualify for a work  permit, subject to a renewal process.  The lawmakers said that worsening crises in countries like Ecuador, Nicaragua and El Salvador threaten the safety of hundreds of thousands of people. The letter asked Biden to make sure that “immigrants who are critical members of our communities and economies are not forgotten during this busy time." The senators are  Catherine Cortez Masto from Nevada, Alex Padilla from California, and Ben Ray Luján from New Mexico.

 

“GOP Leaders Back Trump’s Mass Deportation Plan, Advocate Cooperation Between Local and State Authorities,” Latin Times, Dec . 4, 2024 

GOP governors are supporting President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan by advocating cooperation between local and state authorities. “The GOP leaders are of the opinion that involving local police would make it easier for the authorities to identify and remove undocumented immigrants, who pose a threat to public safety,” said Latin Times reporter Sana Kahn, citing an Axios report. The federal government is depending on the local police because it lacks the resources to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. Kahn notes, however, that “critics warn that this cooperation can create fear in immigrant communities, adding that it discourages immigrants from reporting crimes or helping the police with investigations, because they are afraid of being detained and deported.” The governors of Texas and Utah have announced support for Trump’s deportation effort. Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said last week that state and local governments should be required to help with deportation if they want to receive federal funding.