News Summaries in April 2026

“Venezuela’s Acting President Defends Country’s Territory and Rejects Trump’s 51^st State Remarks,” Associated Press, May 11, 2026

Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez told the press May 11 her country doesn’t plan to become the 51^st U.S. state. Earlier May 11, Fox News co-anchor John Roberts posted on X that President Trump had just told him that he was seriously considering making the South American country a part of the United States as the 51^st state. “We will continue to defend our integrity, our sovereignty, our independence, our history,” Rodriguez said. Venezuela is “not a colony, but a free country,” she said, according to AP reporters Molly Quell and Regina Garcia Cano. Rodriguez spoke to reporters in The Hague, Netherlands, on the final day of hearings at the International Court of Justice concerning the dispute between Venezuela over the neighboring country of Guyana over ownership of the huge Essequibo region and its enormous mineral and oil deposits. The court is likely to take months to decide which country is the rightful owner of the Essequibo. Guyana says 70 percent of its territory is at stake. 

“Brazil’s Congress Overrides Lula’s Veto of a Bill to Reduce Bolsonaro’s Sentence,” Associated Press, April 30, 2026

Brazil’s Congress overrode a presidential veto April 30 of a bill analysts say could shave 20 years off the current 27-year sentence of former President Jair Bolsonaro for plotting a coup. The vote was a blow to the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that indicates a weakening of his strength in Congress ahead of his reelection bid in Brazil’s October presidential election, said AP reporter Mauricio Savarese. The legislation will be challenged in court, he said. “The next stage is full amnesty,” said Bolsonaro ally Sen. Espiridião Amin. Pedro Uczai, the whip of the Workers’ Party in the lower house, argued that the legislation is unconstitutional and said that he would appeal to the Supreme Court to annul it. Competing against Lula in the upcoming election will be Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro, one of Jair’s sons. “This vote is another sign that Bolsonaro is not finished as a political actor, his son will be competitive against Lula,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Inspert University in Sao Paulo.

“As Focus Turns to Iran, U.S. Ramps Up Strikes on Boats in Caribbean,” New York Times, April 29, 2026

U.S. military attacks on boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific to kill people it says are drug traffickers have increased and grown more lethal even as they fade from public attention because of  President Trump’s war in Iran. So reports Eric Schmitt of the New York Times who said the strikes have “deepened questions about a campaign that many legal experts have said has been a series of illegal, extrajudicial killings.” The latest attack on April 25 killed three people in the eastern Pacific. It was the seventh in April and the 54^th overall since the start of the campaign in September. “The strikes have accelerated particularly in the past two weeks, and Sunday’s attack raised the death toll to at least 185,” wrote Schmitt. Because an increased number of fixed-wing aircraft and MQ-9 Reaper drones are involved in the attacks the chances a suspected drug boat has of evading the military have dropped from 50 percent to 25 percent. Schmitt talked to two people in the Trump administration who agreed to be sources on the condition of anonymity. The willingness to conduct the increasing number of attacks despite the depletion of military assets by the Iran war “underscores the rising prominence of the Western Hemisphere in Mr. Trump’s second term,” Schmitt said.  It also comes despite the fact that Gen. Francis L. Donovan, who heads the military’s Southern Command, has said the attacks are not the long-term solution to the nation’s drug problem. The two sources “declined to describe how the military determines which boats to sink and which to allow the Coast Guard to board and seize – as it has done for decades with drug traffickers. The Trump administration has offered little evidence to support its claim that each of the boats destroyed were smuggling drugs. Experts say the strikes are illegal because the military can’t deliberately go after civilians who do not pose an imminent threat of violence. That’s the case even if they are suspected of committing criminal acts. The Trump administration says the attacks are legal because Trump determined that the U.S. is in an armed conflict with Latin American drug cartels and criminal gangs. However, Congress has not authorized any war. 

“Mexico to Investigate U.S. Indictment of Officials for Alleged Sinaloa Ties,” Associated Press, April 30, 2026

Mexico says it will conduct its own investigation of 10 current and former officials who have been indicted in the United States on charges of drug trafficking and illegal weapons possession in connection with the Sinaloa Cartel. Among them are the governor of the Mexican state of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Maya, charged with accepting bribes and help getting elected in exchange for protecting the Sinaloa Cartel (see summary below, “U.S. Government Indicts Mexican Governor and 9 Others, Saying They Aided Cartel,” New York Times, April 30, 2026). Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says she won’t let foreign  governments meddle in Mexico’s affairs to serve their own political purposes, said AP reporters Megan Janetsky and María Verza. The U.S. apparently has requested the extradition of those indicted. Sheinbaum said Mexico’s prosecutors will determine if there is enough evidence to back the U.S. claims. “She said she was ready to put her foot down if Mexican investigations find ‘no clear evidence’ that those charged committed a crime,” the reporters wrote. 

“Thorny Issue as Cuba Falters: Payback for Seized Properties,” New York Times, April 29, 2026

A difficult issue has reemerged as Cuba and the United States conduct secret negotiations over the fate of the island nation’s Communist government: compensating the owners of homes, factories, farms, sugar mills and other businesses confiscated by the Castro regime. It’s estimated that some 200,000 affluent Cubans fled the country after Fidel Castro took power.  Former property owners are hoping that the issue will be addressed. But “resolving confiscations is complicated and would take years,” said Times reporter Frances Robles. “You’ve got to find the solution that protects the current occupants if it’s a home and doesn’t displace anybody,” said Teo A. Babún, Jr., who estimated in 2018 that his family’s holdings were worth $870 million. “And at the same time find justice.” A U.S. government commission documented losses by U.S. citizens and companies, certifying 6,000 claims with a total value of $1.9 billion. With 6 percent interest added, the claims would now take $9 billion to pay – “an amount Cuba would be hard-pressed to pay,” said Robles. Under U.S. law the Cuban government has to return seized property or businesses or compensate the owners before the U.S. lifts its embargo on Cuban goods and services. Nicolás J. Gutiérrez, whose family lost a fortune estimated in the early 1960s at $50 million, said that if the Cuban government returns his family’s properties, the family will put them back into production to help Cuba’s badly damaged economy. Similarly, Enrique Carrillo, whose family owned a rum distillery, “said he was eager for Cuban families to be compensated and to help the country rebuild,” noted Robles. For its part, Cuba has claims against the United States. A Cuban court in 1999 estimated that compensation for “aggressive policies” against Cuba such as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the U.S. trade embargo caused $181 billion in damages. 

“U.S. Indicts Mexican Governor and 9 Others, Saying They Aided Cartel,” New York Times, April 30, 2026

U.S. prosecutors have charged the governor of the Mexican state of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya,  with accepting bribes and help getting elected in exchange for protecting the Sinaloa Cartel.  The April 29 indictment “was remarkable for accusing the highest levels of the state government in Sinaloa of essentially being part of the Sinaloa Cartel,” said Jack Nicas, Maria Abi-Habib and Emiliano Rodriguez Mega of the New York Times.  Rocha is the highest-ranking member of the dominant Morena Party to be indicted. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, also of the Morena Party, has praised his work. Although Sheinbaum has gone aggressively after cartels, she has targeted their leaders and operatives and not the elected officials they’ve corrupted. “The move could drive a wedge between the U.S. and Mexican governments just as they are deepening cooperation on combating the cartels, which have killed thousands of Mexicans and made fortunes by smuggling drugs into the United States,” the reporters said.  According to the indictment, Rubén Rocha Moya met with leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel in 2021. They told Rocha they could make sure he won his election. In return, he’d install officials across the state of Sinaloa who would allow the cartel to operate without fear of being prosecuted. The U.S. prosecutors said the cartel then helped Rocha by stealing ballots and kidnapping and intimidating opposition candidates to force them out of the race. According to the indictment, Rocha and other officials then allowed the cartel to smuggle massive amounts of fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine into the United States. One of the nine former and current Mexican officials indicted along with Rocha, a former police commander in Sinaloa’s capital by the name of Juan Valenzuela Millán, was paid $41,000 a month by the cartel, according to the indictment.  He allegedly helped the cartel in the killing of a confidential source of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and his relatives including a 13-year-old boy. Ronald Johnson, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, said trade between the two countries “requires our governments to criminalize bribery and corruption and enforce codes of conduct for public officials.” Rocha said the charges “are entirely false and without foundation.” He said the indictment was an attempt to attack Mexican sovereignty and undermine the leftist political movement led by Sheinbaum. The Mexican government said it has received an extradition request from the U.S. government for various individuals but that it lacked enough evidence to “establish the responsibility” of the individuals targeted. 

“Employee Testifies Club Knew of Risks,” Wall Street Journal (Associated Press), April 29, 2026

The owners of the legendary Jet Set nightclub whose roof collapsed and killed 236 people a year ago in Santo Domingo were fully aware that the structure had deteriorated, a former employee told a judge. The former employee, Gregory Adames, testified “they knew because I sent them photos. I sent them videos of all the problems that were there. That should not have happened, not a single person should have died there.” The owners, the siblings Antonio and Maribel Espaillat, have been accused of involuntary manslaughter and involuntary assault and battery. Victims’ families have asked that the siblings be accused of voluntary manslaughter. Voluntary manslaughter carries a prison sentence of up to 20  years and involuntary manslaughter two  years. The brothers were arrested last June. Their lawyer told reporters after the arrests that “nobody wanted that to happen.” 

“Bomb Blast on Colombia HighwayLeaves 21 Dead Amid Pre-election Violence,’ The Guardian, April 27, 2026 

In what Governor Octavio Guzman  of the Cauca department of Colombia called the most brutal attack on the civilian population in decades, 21 people died April 25 in a highway bombing that also left 56 injured. The head of the Colombian military, Hugo López, said the bomb exploded after assailants blocked traffic with a bus and another vehicle on the Pan-American Highway. The government blamed the attack on cocaine-trafficking rebels. “It is a terrorist attack against the civilian population,” López said. The country’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro, said Iván Mordisco, the alias used by Colombia’s most wanted criminal, was responsible for the attack. The attack came a little over a month before Colombia elects a successor to Petro.  Mordisco heads a dissident faction of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as Farc. “Colombia has a history of armed groups – which finance their operations through drug trafficking, illegal mining and extortion – attempting to influence elections through violence,” according to the Guardian story. Farc remnants rejected a 2016 peace deal between the Colombian government and armed rebel groups. These remnants have been trying to disrupt stalled peace talks with Petro. Iván Cepeda, a leftist senator who is an architect of Petro’s policy of negotiating with armed groups, leads the polls. Trailing him are two right-wing candidates who have taken a hard line against rebel groups, Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia. The three candidates have received death threats. 

“’An Angel’ Waits Outside the Prison to Help Freed Inmates,” New York Times, April 23, 2026

When her brother was arrested in 2022 and disappeared into El Salvador’s massive prison population, Sugey Amaya went to a holding station called El Penalito for people passing into and out of detention. She frantically searched for information about her brother, says Times reporter Annie Correal, only to learn he had been transferred to a prison elsewhere. The 29-year-old Amaya also learned that inmates would not be released from El Penalito if there was no family member to receive them. “Without thinking too much about it, Ms. Amaya started signing for strangers, then taking them to a secondhand clothing stand to change out of their prison-issued white T-shirts, shorts and rubber sandals,” Correal says. “Then she made sure they got home.” That became her life. Two percent of El Salvador is imprisoned, part of a massive crackdown that has brought safety to El Salvador’s previously brutally violent streets but also entrapped many innocents who are not allowed to contact families or lawyers. Amaya found that  the men leaving El Penalito had no money and were disoriented after months or years in prison.  One man, who had been arrested and put into jail for two years after he came back from Boston to visit relatives, could not easily find his way back home when she signed for his release. It was after midnight when Amaya dropped him off in a town 40 miles from the capital. Another man was released at 3 a.m. with no family there -- but Amaya was. Only 4 foot 9 and weighing less than 100 pounds, she seemed to him an angel. Some men have had no place to go, and Amaya sometimes let them stay overnight at her house until relatives said it was too risky. Men are often shocked by her generosity, Amaya said. She now provides this help full time, working off of donations from the families of prisoners to pay the costs of travel, the clothes she buys for those released, and something to eat on the way home. Amaya told Correal that she never asks the men why they were imprisoned, saying it doesn’t matter to her. “I see my brother’s face in them,” she said. By now, she has signed for hundreds of prisoners. “The ones who come with me – I get to ask them, ‘where were you held? How do they treat you all in there? It helps to understand my brother’s world.” And she still has faith that one day her brother Alexis will appear, says Correal. 

“Appeals Court Rules Trump’s Ban on Asylum Claims at Border is Illegal,” New York Times, April 27, 2026

A federal appeals panel ruled that President Trump can’t categorically deny asylum claims by people crossing the border from Mexico into the United States. Trump tried to put a sweeping asylum ban in place the first day of his second term when he issued a proclamation declaring  an “invasion” across the southern border and invoking what he said was his right and duty to protect national sovereignty, said Times reporter Mattathias Schwartz. A three-judge panel of the D.C. U.S. Court of Appeals issued the ruling 2-1. The Trump administration has 45 days to ask for the case to be heard by the full appellate court. Or, it could appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the administration “will seek further review of this badly flawed decision.” Although it doesn’t take effect right away, the ruling is a step closer to a requirement that new applications from asylum seekers be processed.  The Supreme Court already is considering a second case concerning whether asylum seekers can be turned back at the border before they get a chance to apply for asylum. 

“Texas Can Arrest People Illegally Crossing From Mexico, Court Says,” New York Times, April 27, 2026

A federal appeals court ruled that a 2023 Texas law can take effect starting May 15 that permits state and local police to arrest migrants who cross illegally from Mexico, a power that has been limited to the federal government. “The court, however, did not address the underlying question of whether the law unconstitutionally infringes on the federal government’s power to set and enforce immigration law,” said Times reporter Amy Qin. Civil rights and immigrant groups and the El Paso County government have signaled that they’ll appeal the decision. The law lets state law enforcement officers in Texas perform the job of the U.S. Border Patrol. It also allows state and local judges order the removal of noncitizens. “Critics have said the law could lead to increased racial profiling and the detention of people hundreds of miles from the border,” Qin said. She noted that the Mexican government has said it won’t accept people deported by local or state agencies. Analysts say the case is likely to be decided by the Supreme Court. If the court overrules a landmark 2012 decision upholding the broad power of the federal government to set immigration policy, it could lead Republican-controlled state legislatures to create state-level systems of border enforcement.   

“’A Sudden Gap: Poorest to Suffer From Trump’s Drive to Stop Cuba Sending Doctors to Its Neighbors,” The Guardian, April 26, 2026

Many people across Latin America and the Caribbean have suddenly lost access to health care because almost a dozen countries have given in to pressure by the Trump administration to no longer accept Cuban medical teams inside their borders. That means that people such as 73-year-old Novlyn Banks in Jamaica can no longer get an eye operation she needs unless she can somehow come up with the equivalent of about 1,700 English pounds. Jamaica decided in March to end its nearly 30-year-old agreement with Cuba to provide doctors. Other countries that have done so are Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, and Paraguay, said Guardian reporters Natricia Duncan, Anthony Lugg and Tiago Rogero. The Trump administration claims Cuban doctors are forced to perform uncompensated labor, a form of slave labor it says must end. The Cuban government withholds most of the salary of the doctors. Doctors, non-governmental organizations and researchers agree that the people most harmed by the sudden withdrawal of the doctors are the poorest communities in the region. The doctors typically provide care in remote and underserved communities. Mexico has refused to end the program, saying that the 3,000 Cuban doctors there are of great help in remote areas. Trump officials say they will cut off the visas of government officials or even their family members if they have any connection to the program. An estimated 600,000 Cuban doctors, nurses and health technicians have been sent to more than 160 countries since the program began in 1960. Estimates now are that some 20,000 doctors serve in 50 countries. It’s estimated that some 10,000 Cuban health professionals are in Venezuela. Reports by the UN and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights say that Cuban doctors work under coercion. The Cuban government retains about 80 percent of their salaries. According to John Kirk, a professor emeritus at Dalhousie University in Canada, the medical program generates about $5 billion per year in revenue for the Cuban government. “Now, Trump is determined to cut that off in his attempt to bring about regime change,” said Kirk. He said he’s interviewed 270 Cuban doctors, nurses and health technicians and none said they’d been forced to work. A Cuban doctor who spent five years in Venezuela denied it was slave labor. Yanili Magdariaga Menéndez said she went from making nearly $40 a month in Cuba to about $1,000 abroad even after the Cuban government took its share. University of Glasgow lecturer Helen Yaffe said the Trump administration isn’t really concerned about the human rights of the Cuban doctors. She asked, “How can they claim to care about human rights while blocking oil shipments to Cuba, which means that premature babies in incubators are left at risk during power cuts?” 

“Peru Police Raid Ex-Election Chief’s Home as Ballot Shortages Spark a Widening Probe,” Associated Press, April 24, 2026

Police in Peru raided the home of the former head of the country’s election agency who resigned earlier this week as authorities investigated a shortage of ballots and other irregularities in the first round of the presidential election April 12. The homes of Piero Corvetto and several other former electoral officials are under investigation. The probe also includes the legal representative of Galaga, a company that transported ballots across the capital, Lima. Corvetto told authorities he hasn’t done anything wrong but resigned to “generate more confidence” in a June 7 runoff vote, said AP reporter Franklin Briceño. The April 12 election had to be lengthened by one more day because of the failure to deliver voting materials to more than a dozen centers in Lima. That delay prevented more than 52,000 voters from casting ballots on time. The candidate now in third place in the vote tally, ultraconservative Rafael López Aliaga, charged that “electoral fraud unique in the world” had occurred in Peru. He labeled Corvetto a criminal and said he would pursue him “until he dies.” He didn’t offer evidence to back up his charge. “An electoral mission from the European Union urged political actors to refrain from violent rhetoric and has ruled out any indications of fraud,” said Briceño. At present, López Aliaga is odd man out of the runoff. With 95.1 percent of the votes counted, Keiko Fujimori, the conservative daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, had 17.05 percent of the vote and nationalist Roberto Sánchez 12.03 percent, followed by López Aliaga with 11.9 percent. Peru’s electoral court has set a deadline of May 15 for announcing the two candidates that will advance to the runoff. 

“Justice Department Targets Hundreds of Citizens in New Push for Denaturalization,” New York Times, April 24, 2026

The Justice Department is planning to revoke the citizenship of 384 foreign-born Americans as part of following through on what spokesman Matthew Tragesser called “the highest volume of denaturalization referrals in history” from the Department of Homeland Security. A government official said a “wave” of other revocations are in the works. Tragesser said his department “is laser focused on rooting out criminal aliens defrauding the naturalization process.” Between 1990 and 2017, the government filed an average of 11 denaturalization cases per year, tending to go after those who committed war crimes abroad before trying to become U.S. citizens. Washington Post reporters Ernesto Londoño and Hamed Aleaziz said “the push indicates that the Trump administration aims to make good on its plan to increase the pace of denaturalizations as part of its crackdown on immigration. The move will likely scare many naturalized immigrants as the Trump administration has sought to curtail immigration across the board and spoken disdainfully about migrants from certain countries.” University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost said “the message it sends is that naturalized citizens don’t have the same rights and stability as native-born citizens. The government has used this power in the past to target people it views as political opponents.” In 2024, more than 818,000 immigrants became citizens; the vetting process is extensive. There have been fraud cases. The inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security said in a 2017 report that a program to digitize fingerprints collected on paper in old immigration cases found that more than 800 immigrants obtained U.S. citizenship despite being deported earlier under a different name. 

“From Prison Gang to Cocaine Power,” Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2026

It’s fast becoming one of the world’s biggest criminal organizations, says Samantha Pearson of the Wall Street Journal. First Capital Command, known by the Portuguese initials PCC, is a Brazilian gang whose members “keep a low, businesslike profile, seeking fortune, not fame – and shying away from gratuitous violence that attracts police and TV crews,” writes Pearson. “Recruits sign up to a strict code of conduct, sometimes by videoconference.” Described as organized crime at its most organized, PCC  now has 40,000 members in and out of prison and a vast network of affiliates. Some say PCC  is the largest criminal group in the Americas and operates in almost 30 countries on every continent except Antarctica. It has the efficiency of a multinational corporation and trafficks so much cocaine into Europe that there’ve been record seizures of the drug there and violent turf wars in Antwerp, Rotterdam and Hamburg. “Grenade attacks, shootings, murders, torture and kidnappings have been documented by port police,” Pearson writes. Cocaine is its main business, but members are involved in everything from illegal gold mining and cargo theft to cybercrimes and trafficking exotic birds. Bruno Manso, a leading authority on the gang, says it gives recruits something they feel they can’t get elsewhere, an escape from the unrelenting misery of urban life. It provides a kind of underworld government that frees members to make money the way they want to – from selling drugs to laundering money through a gas station – as long as they remain loyal. Pearson says “it started out as a band of prison inmates fighting for soap and toilet paper in the 1990s” in abusive overcrowded Brazilian prisons plagued by tuberculosis and lice and police violence. Authorities were alarmed by the growing jailhouse solidarity and dispersed inmates to other parts of Brazil. That only hastened the spread of the PCC with members driven by an ethos of “peace, justice and freedom.” It “cast itself as a parallel power to a state whose abuses – from prison officials to politicians – help the gang draw recruits,” Pearson says. Members who disobey its rules are punished through internal jailhouse trials that can end in torture or execution, according to authorities. Through sometimes bloody warfare with other gangs, it has fought for control of the Amazon rainforest and its waterways connecting to countries that produce cocaine. PCC figures sometimes pose as pastors spreading the word of God to recruit members. It moves tons of cocaine through the Amazon each month and controls many small cities and towns in the rainforest. Brazilian authorities are now calling on President Trump to designate the PCC a foreign terrorist organization as it has other Latin American criminal gangs. 

“Gang Runs Venezuela’s Drug Trade,” Wall Street Journal, April 22, 2026

President Trump wants to shut down the drug trade between Colombia and Venezuela and is pressuring the leaders of both countries to do it. But neither really control the 1,400-mile-long border they share – instead it’s a criminal gang that calls the shots, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, says Wall Street Journal reporter Ian Lovett. The ELN was originally an anti-government group started six decades ago in Colombia. Now it’s a transnational criminal organization with about half of its members Venezuelan. It has amassed “influence in Venezuela while allying with smuggling groups to distribute drugs worldwide.” It controls the drug smuggling routes between Colombia and Venezuela and oversees the land in Colombia where farmers grow coca. It also runs illegal goldmines in southern Venezuela and is effectively the government in towns on both sides of the border. It is “not only an armed presence, it’s a social, economic and state-like presence in some areas,” said Gabriel Silva, former Colombian defense minister. He notes that if the U.S. tries to get rid of the ELN by force, “it could turn out to be a small Vietnam. It’s a very difficult area. Establishing control on both sides of the border is going to be very difficult.” 

“Mexico Eyes U.S. Role in Raid Before Fatal Crash,” Wall Street Journal, April 22, 2026

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has demanded an investigation into reports that two U.S. officials helped to dismantle a giant meth lab in her country before they died in a fiery car crash. “We are investigating what those people were doing and…what agency they were from,” Sheinbaum said. The Washington Post reported that the two officials worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. Two Mexican security officials also died in the crash in which the vehicle they were riding in with the Americans ran off a mountain road. Sheinbaum said Mexico’s attorney general was investigating whether Mexican law had been violated. The Associated Press reported April 22 that Mexican and U.S. officials “have been offering contradictory accounts for days. After the Mexican government originally said it had no knowledge of any sort of operation or U.S. involvement, the president admitted Wednesday that federal forces were involved and another high-level official acknowledged that the government at least discussed the matter with the U.S.” The A.P. report added that “Sheinbaum on Wednesday maintained that she had no knowledge of the operation between the U.S. and local Chihuahua authorities, and that it could constitute a violation of Mexico’s law, because any such action should be approved by the federal government.” Sheinbaum said “there cannot be agents from any U.S. government institution operating in the Mexican field. It is very important that something like this not be allowed to go unaddressed.”

“Migrant Children Leave Shelter After Claims of Abuse,” April 20, 2026

Federal officials moved migrant children and adolescents out of a shelter in New York’s Westchester County after complaints that detainees there had been mistreated. Abuse was alleged  at a facility run by the Children’s Village, a shelter operator in Dobbs Ferry, a village in Westchester Country. “A lawyer who had visited the facility said that children who had been detained there had been punished with restraints and seclusion,” said Times reporter Ana Ley. Leecia Welch, legal counsel at Children’s Rights, a nonprofit that represents children in government custody, said adolescents complained about being placed alone for days in what they called “a red room.” Welch said “there’s just no question kids have been harmed. Children’s behaviors continue to worsen the longer they are detained in these facilities, and these types of harmful practices create a perfect storm for them to get seriously injured.” A spokesman for the Children’s Village said “we have zero tolerance for any form of punishment. All teens in our care deserve the highest level of care, support and professionalism from every adult responsible for their well-being.” Unaccompanied children have stayed at Children’s Village facilities in New York since 2004. “The organization tries to find relatives or suitable sponsors who can care for children until their immigration hearings,” Ley wrote.  Children’s Village, founded in 1851 to care for children legally removed from their parents, receives money from the federal government. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (O.R.R.) at the federal Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for unaccompanied migrant children. Andrew Nixon, a Health and Human Services Department spokesman, said “the safety and well-being of children in O.R.R. care is a top priority. Any credible concerns are addressed swiftly and thoroughly.”  

“Old Argentine Hurdles Slow Milei’s Radical Reforms,” Wall Street Journal, April 18-19, 2026

“Wild-haired libertarian” Javier Milei is at his lowest level of popularity as president of Argentina, say Samantha Pearson and Silvina Frydlewsky of the Wall Street Journal. And while Milei still has a good chance of being reelected president in October, his approval rating fell to 36.4 percent in late March, they said. That he may yet win in the fall reflects “a weak opposition rather than confidence in his administration.” Slightly more than half of Argentinians said they want a change of government next year, according to a recent poll. Milei has slashed government spending, lowered inflation and stabilized the currency, but voters have yet to see the benefit, said Benjamin Gedan, who heads the Latin America Program at the Stimson Center. Among the top concerns are low salaries and unemployment. Public spending under Milei has fallen about 30% and triple-digit inflation is now close to 30%. The production of oil and gas has surged in the country’s Vaca Muerta shale formation. Mining of copper and lithium have attracted new investment and generated needed dollars through exports. But “investment in job-creating sectors such as manufacturing and services remains weak, and unemployment has risen.” On the one hand, there’s a fast-growing export sector but on the other the domestic economy is stagnating and inflation still remains high by international standards, said Maurico Monge, Latin-American economist at Oxford Economics. Milei needs to persuade voters that his changes will eventually pay off but that trust is hard to win if the public suspects corruption. Milei is facing fresh questions about his role in promoting a digital coin that soared in value after he endorsed it on social media in February 2025 and then wiped out millions of dollars in investor’s funds when it crashed hours later. Recently published phone records show several calls between Milei and the lobbyist behind the digital coin  on the night of its launch. The records also showed calls between the lobbyist and Karina Milei, the sister of Milei who is his closest confidant. The case “will likely keep resurfacing…as it is one of the few issues on which the opposition has a specific and public line against him and his inner circle,” said Rafael Ch of Signum Global Advisers. Opposition from unions and the courts also have frustrated the Milei agenda. 

“Castro Family Has a Bigger Hand in Cuba’s Negotiations With U.S.,” Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2026

The family of Raúl Castro, the 94-year-old former president of Cuba and the brother of Fidel, is on the rise as the Cuban economy struggles to survive the economic chokehold applied by the Trump oil embargo.  José de Córdoba of the Wall Street Journal, quoting exiled Cuban writer Abraham Jiménez Enoa, writes that “the future of the country runs through that family – it’s a monarchy.” The patriarch Raúl is in frail health, last seen at a ceremony in January to receive the remains of 0f 32 Cuban soldiers killed by American commandos when they captured Venezuelan strongman leader Nicolás Maduro. However, his son Alejandro Castro Espin and his grandson Raúl Rodríguez Castro have been in touch with U.S. officials  -- “underscoring the continuing importance of the Castro family in Cuba’s affairs,” says de Córdoba. Forty-one-year-old Raúl, known as “the Crab” because he was born with a sixth finger on one hand, was sent to meet U.S. officials when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio went in February to a conference in St. Kitts. A favorite of Raúl’s, he’s been referred to as the future of the family. Raúl Castro also is depending on his son Alejandro, a hard liner who was the lead negotiator in secret talks that led to the Obama administration establishing full diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2015. “Fidel Castro and other hardliners hated the rapprochement, which they saw as a Trojan Horse to corrupt the regime’s revolutionary fiber by surreptitiously introducing capitalism to Cuba,” notes de Córdoba. Another key figure -- who has seen a “meteoric rise” -- is the grand-nephew of Raúl Castro, Oscar Pérez-Oliva, now deputy prime minister. The 55-year-old electrical engineer was the Cuban government’s choice to sit down for an interview with a U.S. television network to persuade Cuban-Americans to invest in Cuba. The Castro family has close ties to GAESA, which according to observers controls more than 40 percent of the Cuban economy. It’s a military-owned conglomerate that controls such lucrative sectors as luxury hotels, foreign-exchange establishments and gas stations. 

“Peru’s Real Leader Is Its Central Banker,” Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2026

Apart from Peru’s presidential tumult stands its 73-year-old central bank governor, a figure lauded for lending long-term stability to the South American country’s relatively strong economy. He is Julio Velarde, under whom Peru’s inflation rate has averaged about 3 percent per year and was just 1.5 percent last year. Velarde, says Wall Street Journal reporter Ryan Dubé, “has steered Peru through global crises and domestic tumult, making the central bank an island of stability that has shielded the economy from political scandals that have cycled nine presidents through office since 2016.” A top concern of investors and rating agencies is who will succeed him after he finishes his fourth five-year term in July. The Trump administration, eager to build up a supply chain of critical minerals in South America, is trying to strengthen its ties to Peru. It named the country a major non-NATO ally in January. A new U.S. ambassador is seeking to boost ties as Peru elects a new president. Peru’s inflation rate of 1.5 percent last year was below that of other big Latin American economies and that of the United States. Its average economic growth of 4 percent per year surpasses that of Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Colombia, according to the Institute of International Finance. Its sol currency is more stable than that of other Latin American countries, its central bank says. A key element of that stability is that the central bank Velarde manages has autonomy, unlike inflation-prone countries like Argentina where the central bank is subordinate to the president. “Economists cite that record to underscore the importance of central-bank autonomy as President Trump wants the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates,” said Dubé. Velarde has built a large supply of foreign reserves to back the sol, much more so than other big Latin American countries. That’s a tradeoff. “Other politicians want to tap the central banks’ foreign reserves – nearly $100 billion – to pay for schools and hospitals rather than using them as a safeguard against financial crises,” said Dubé. 

“Trial in Argentina Probes Soccer Hero’s 2020 Death,” Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2026

Prosecutors in Argentina have concluded that the death of soccer legend Diego Maradona in 2020 was the result of “simple homicide with eventual intent” on the part of his medical team and are bringing that charge to trial this week. “Eventual intent” means the actions of the medical team contributed to Maradona’s death in the view of prosecutors. “Seven defendants, including Maradona’s doctor and nurses and a psychiatrist, face as many as 25 years in prison,” said Wall Street Journal reporter Ryan Dubé. Prosecutors said the medical team ignored significant warning signs that his health was deteriorating. They called the house where he was recovering from brain surgery a “theater of horrors.” A medical board said that the room in which he was recovering lacked easy access to a bathroom and that he was fed overly salty meals. It had no defibrillator or oxygen tank. Maradona died of a heart attack. The board said the medical team gave in too easily to Maradona’s demands. The defendants, however, “say they did their best to help a difficult patient who often resisted treatment and refused to see them. His body was in tatters after decades of drug use and drinking,” Dubé wrote. Maradona almost died from heart failure in 2000 because of a cocaine overdose. He was later treated for alcohol abuse. In fragile health, he was stuck at home during the Covid pandemic and drank heavily and took sleeping pills, according to a podcast that reviewed texts from his medical team. A blood clot on his brain was removed in an emergency operation. He died not long after. 

“Cuba Tried to Deliver a Letter to Trump,” Wall Street Journal, April 17 2026

The grandson of 94-year-old Raúl Castro, the most important figure in the Cuban government, tried to personally deliver a letter to the White House last week -- an apparent attempt to do an end-around of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. It didn’t work. Forty-one-year-old Raúl Rodríguez Castro , who has served as his grandfather’s bodyguard for years, has emerged as an intermediary in talks between the Cuban and U.S. governments. Journal reporters José de Cordoba and Vera Bergengruen said he arranged with a wealthy Havana entrepreneur to try to personally take the letter to the White House outside of normal diplomatic channels. The letter “proposed economic and investment deals, as well as sanctions relief, and warned that the regime was preparing for a U.S. incursion, according to [a U.S.] official,” the Journal reporters said. But the businessman was sent back to Havana after a customs agent stopped him at the airport and took the letter. The effort seemed to be an attempt to reach President Trump directly. Analysts said Trump might be more willing to cut an economic deal with Cuba while leaving most of the regime in place, a result that would anger many Cuban Americans. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants,  has long been a force for pressuring Cuba’s Communist government to force political change. “To try and sidestep Rubio…is downright foolish and bound to backfire,” said Ricardo Herrero of the Washington, D.C.-based Cuba Study Group. 

“Maduro Has Gone, and the Purge Has Begun,” New York Times, April 18, 2026

Under the instructions of the Trump administration, Venezuela's Interim President Delcy Rodríguez is purging people who kept in power her former boss Nicholas Maduro, the strongman leader removed from the South American country by the U.S. military early this year. The people “are being purged gradually and inconspicuously,” said Anatoly Kurmanaev and Mariana Martinez of the Times. “Some have been fired or detained, and others are anxiously looking over their shoulders, worried they might be next.” Maduro’s defense minister, Gen. Vladimir Padrino López, was fired from that post in March. His son, Nicolas Maduro Guerra, has been cut out of lucrative business deals. His attorney general, Tarek William Saab, was fired. Alex Saab, a Maduro confidant who has made billions of dollars from preferential food and oil contracts, is no longer industry minister and has been detained. He could be extradited to the U.S. Other prominent businessmen close to the Maduro family also have been detained. Kurmanaev and Martinez of the Times said Rodríguez in March “widened the purge to the armed forces, firing Venezuela’s entire military leadership....” At the same time, Rodríguez “has also found willing enforcers in Venezuela’s security forces who have pledged their allegiance, hoping to avoid retribution for decades of human rights abuses.” However, Diasdado Cabello, the interior minister under Maduro who headed his repression machinery remains in power even though wanted in the United States on drug trafficking charges. He’s considered a risky target because of his connections to armed pro-government groups. To stay in power Cabello “has recast himself, from ruling party pit bull to a patriotic guarantor of stability.” His relatives have kept government jobs running the secret police and the tax service and his daughter is the new tourism minister. 

“In Venezuela, Top Diplomat For U.S. Leaves in Shake-Up,” New York Times, April 17, 2026

The top U.S. diplomat in Venezuela has announced she is leaving, raising questions about the Trump administration’s priorities there after it captured and extricated strongman leader Nicolás Maduro. The diplomat, Laura Dogu, arrived in Venezuela just three months ago, when she reopened the U.S. embassy. It wasn’t immediately clear why she is leaving, but she said her position in Venezuela was temporary and that she is returning to her previous post as foreign policy adviser to Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dogu had been the U.S. ambassador in Honduras and Nicaragua. Times reporter Simon Romero said Dogu “gained a celebrity status in the country in public appearances alongside visiting U.S. company executives and Delcy Rodríguez, Mr. Maduro’s vice president, who took over as president.” Dogu  said she would be replaced by John Barrett, the top U.S. diplomat in Guatemala. Barrett held diplomatic posts in Panama, Peru and Brazil. “In Venezuela, concerns have…emerged over the slow pace of reform under Ms. Rodríguez,” Romero said. She’s been conciliatory toward the United States but hasn’t brought about significant economic or political change. “Legislators approved overhauls in the oil and mining sectors, but big U.S. investment deals have yet to materialize,” Romero noted. Rodríguez has tolerated small political protests and released hundreds of political prisoners but the government remains authoritarian and she hasn’t set a date for democratic elections. Her government has promised to arrest Maria Corina Machado, the opposition leader, if she returns to Venezuela.

 “In Mexico, Day of Reckoning for Sheinbaum’s War on Crime: 133,000 Missing,” New York Times, April 17, 2026

There’s a grim challenge in Mexico that does not go away “no matter how hard its leaders have tried to solve it, minimize it or hide it,” say Emiliano Rodríguez Mega and Paulina Villegas of the New York Times --  it's estimated that more than 133,000 people have disappeared in the past two decades. Many have vanished at the hands of organized crime or colluding officials, they say. The crisis has hung over the administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum, with a fresh reminder coming last week of the inability to put it to rest. It came at the so-called Izaguirre ranch in the state of Jalisco, where the shocking discovery last year of  piles of shoes by volunteers searching for the missing convinced many it was a drug cartel extermination camp. The government denied it even after the discovery of charred human remains. But last week volunteer searchers found more grim evidence in the form of a septic pit full of human teeth and bone fragments. Sheinbaum is under growing pressure to address the tragedy.  However, some observers say she is making progress. She is mandating that prosecutors open an investigation after receiving a report of a disappearance. A new nationwide emergency system alerts authorities when someone is reported missing. She also has moved to strengthen forensic and search teams. “Last year, about 22,000 missing people were found alive – the highest annual number on record,” said  the Times reporters. But she hasn’t escaped controversy.  Sheinbaum ordered an audit of the national disappearance registry after the Izaguirre ranch discovery to ensure officials had accurate data. The results announced last month divided the roughly 130,000 entries into three groups. One was of people for whom data was too incomplete to permit searches. A second was of people who after their disappearances were reported filed taxes, got married or received vaccinations, suggesting they were still alive. The remaining 43,600 have never been heard of after being reported missing but there is enough information to conduct searches. But human rights  groups say that number must be an undercount because there are more than 72,000 bodies unclaimed across Mexico’s morgues and many disappearances aren’t reported. Some analysts say that because the government didn’t publicize the data and methodology used in conducting the audit its accuracy is impossible to verify. Critics say the analysis resembles previous audits that fell short. Jorge Verástegui González said “it’s an attempt to contain the crisis by lowering the numbers.” He is an expert on disappearances whose brother and nephew were abducted by police officers in 2009. In addition, the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances released a report this month saying disappearances in Mexico were not only widespread and systematic they often involved the complicity of authorities. Sheinbaum  accused the experts of failing to take into account recent progress. She said “they cannot accuse a government that fought against forced disappearances committed by the state of committing the same crime.” 

“Colombia Convenes Climate ‘Coalition of the Willing’ to Break Global Fossil Fuel Deadlock,” The Guardian, April 17, 2026

The link between fossil fuels and the breakdown of the climate is known by everyone but until recently mention of such fuels was all but erased from annual United Nations summits on the climate. Guardian reporters Fiona Harvey and Jonathan Watts noted that “last year, two weeks of discussions ended without fossil fuels being mentioned in the final outcome.” The resulting frustration led Colombia, the largest coal and fourth-largest oil exporter in the Americas, to “rewrite the rules,” the reporters said. Colombia along with the Netherlands will host a groundbreaking global conference this month to begin the transition away from fossil fuels. The April 28-29 conference in Santa Marta “looks more prescient than ever” with the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran causing fuel prices to soar worldwide and so too food prices and general inflation.  Colombia’s environment minister, Irene Vélez Torres, predicted that as a result “this is the moment in which history is going to split.” The choice leaders face is between oil, gas and coal, and cleaner, safer renewable energy for the future. Some countries and individuals already have chosen. “Record numbers of households in the UK are turning to solar panels, electric vehicles and heat pumps,” the Guardian said. “Not counting China, global power generation from coal and gas has fallen, while renewables have surged ahead, with solar generation up 14% and wind by 8%.” Countries that want to move ahead with the energy transition no longer will be held back thanks to the new conference, Vélez said. Fifty-four nations want to be part of this “coalition of the willing.” Not among them are the U.S., China, India, Russia and the “Gulf petro states.” Vélez said “we are not going to have boycotters or climate denialists at the table.” Attendees account for about one-fifth of the world’s fossil fuel production and about a third of the demand. Among them are the UK, the EU, Canada, and Australia and Turkey, which will jointly convene the next United Nations climate summit to be held in November. Major fuel producers such as Nigeria, Angola, Mexico and Brazil will be among the attendees at the Santa Marta meeting. It’s meant to be the first in a series that complements not replaces the UN yearly climate summits. For its part, Colombia has decided to stop licensing new coal, oil or gas exploration and to focus instead on renewable energy, tourism and agriculture.  

 “House Passes a Bill to Protect Haitian Immigrants , in Slap Back to the Trump Administration,” Associated Press, April 16, 2026

The House passed legislation April 16 requiring a three-year extension of temporary protected status for Haitian immigrants who President Trump wants to send back to their homeland despite the dangerous conditions in their country stemming from widespread gang violence. A number of Republicans joined with Democrats to get the measure onto the House floor despite the opposition of House GOP leaders and then joined with Democrats to get it through by a margin of 224-204. The legislation would allow some 350,oo0 Haitians lawfully in the U.S. to remain for a much-extended period. “But it faces uncertainty in the Senate, and the Republican president would almost certainly seek to veto it,” said AP reporter Lisa Mascaro.  Trump as part of his mass deportation campaign wants to end temporary protected status for immigrants of various nationalities including Haitians. Mascaro noted that Trump has falsely accused Haitian migrants in Ohio of eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs. The U.S. Supreme Court hasn't shown signs of intervening on behalf of the Haitians. It is scheduled to hear a case in less than two weeks on a fast-track basis that would end protected status for Haitian and Syrian immigrants. Also, “the conservative majority court has allowed the end of temporary legal status for a total of 600,000 people from Venezuela while lawsuits play out, leaving them to face potential deportation,” said Mascaro. 

“Immigrants Fear Filing Taxes and It Could Cost the U.S. Billions,” New York Times, April 15, 2026

Millions of undocumented people who file tax returns fear they will be sent out of the country because the Trump administration has directed the Internal Revenue Service to give immigration officials the addresses of people subject to deportation – something the IRS has not done in the past. As a result, many are expected to stop filing tax returns, so much so that the nonpartisan Yale Budget Lab has projected lost tax revenue of about $300 billion over the next decade. “The shift sent shock waves through the I.R.S., where taxpayer privacy had been an article of faith, and through immigrant communities, where filing tax returns was seen as a way for people in the country illegally to show that they were complying with tax laws,” said Miriam Jordan and Andrew Duehren of the New York Times. Before the agreement last year between ICE and the I.R.S. to begin sharing information, unauthorized immigrants paid roughly $60 billion a year in federal taxes, estimated the Institution on Taxation and Economic Policy, a progressive think tank.  Much of the money went to Social Security and Medicare, from which undocumented immigrants can’t benefit. “Many undocumented immigrants have taxes withheld in every paycheck, but experts worry some could shift into under-the-table jobs,” the reporters said. “Others with less formal earnings could now skip filing a tax return – and therefore not pay federal taxes at all.” An estimated 14 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States, about 70 percent of them in the labor force, according to the Pew Research Center, based on 2023 data.   

“Mexico Has Major Crush on Top Cop,” Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2026

The top governmental official fighting the drug-linked violence that upends Mexico is becoming an adored figure mentioned as a potential president someday.  “The square-jawed face of Mexico’s anti-cartel campaign has become an unlikely sex symbol – his manly likeness splashed on blankets, reimagined in AI-generated fantasies and recast as caped crusader,” said Wall Street Journal reporter Robert P. Walzer. Omar García Harfuch, Mexico’s Security Minister, is being memorialized in corridos, or Mexican folk ballads. He’s hailed as a fearless figure after taking bullets in a 2020 assassination attempt in Mexico City that killed two members of his security detail. The February operation that killed “El Mencho,” the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, enhanced his popularity. Walzer wrote that “the mission carried great personal weight: García Harfuch blamed El Mencho for the 2020 attack” in which he nearly died. “His thousands of online fans call him Mexico’s new ‘papacito’ or ‘papuch,’ variations on ‘hottie’ or ‘daddy.’” Politicians have long shared cultural space in Mexico with entertainers in Mexico. “What we’re seeing is the making of an icon, fueled by aesthetic appeal, cultural context and a public craving for security amid widespread violence,” said Nelson Arteaga Botello, a professor at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences.  García Harfuch is said to be uncomfortable with his sex symbol image. His mother “says her son is grounded, humble and committed to public service, aware that attention to his looks is fleeting,” said Walzer. His image as what one observer described as effective, clean and tough “appears to be translating into political capital,” said Walzer. “Polls show García Harfuch as a top contender in Mexico’s 2030 presidential race, though it’s unclear if he would run.”

Guardian story on assassination attempt: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/26/three-die-in-attempted-of-mexico-city-police-chief

“Mexico’s Sheinbaum Takes a Firmer Stance Toward the U.S. Over Migrant Deaths and Cuba,” Associated Press, April 14, 2026

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, requested investigations April 14 into the deaths of 15 Mexicans in U.S. immigration custody over a little more than a year. Sheinbaum’s rebuke came a day after a 49-year-old Mexican citizen, Alejandro Cabrera Clemente died in an ICE detention center in Louisiana. The Mexican government called the deaths unacceptable. It termed ICE detention centers “incompatible with human rights standards and the protection of life.”  Sheinbaum instructed Mexican consulates in the U.S to visit detention centers daily.  “She said her government would raise the deaths in detention centers to [the] Inter-American Commission on Human Rights , and was considering appealing to the United Nations,” said AP reporters Megan Janetsky and Will Weissert. They said Sheinbaum has taken a harder line with the Trump administration after a period of carefully measuring her responses to Trump administration provocations. Sheinbaum said “we are going to defend Mexicans at every level.” She added that “there are many Mexicans whose only crime is not having papers.” Sheinbaum also pushed back on Trump’s oil blockade of Cuba. “Mexico has every right to send fuel, whether for humanitarian or commercial reasons,” she said earlier in the week. She called the Trump blockade “unjust” and said the U.S. is “suffocating” Cuba with sanctions. 

“Allies of Disgraced Former Presidents Lead in Peru Presidential Election,” Associated Press, April 15, 2026

With 90 percent of the ballots counted, the conservative daughter of a disgraced former president was the top vote-getter in Peru’s presidential election. Keiko Fujimori had 16.98% of the vote, followed by Roberto Sánchez, a nationalist congressman and former minister, who had 12.04%. In third place with 11.90% was Rafael López Aliaga, the ultraconservative former mayor of Lima, the capital of Peru. The top two vote-getters will compete in a runoff election June 7. The count has been delayed by logistical errors. AP reporter Franklin Briceño said “the sluggish pace of the count mirrored Peru’s 2021 presidential election, a contest where final tallies were not completed until five days after the polls closed.” The voting began April 12. Alberto Fujimori began a decade-long presidency by righting Peru’s economy and defeating a brutal insurgency, but it ended “in autocratic excess that later sent him to prison.” His daughter Keiko  has promised to crack down on crime but at the same time  has defended laws that make it harder to prosecute criminals, according to experts.  Those laws end preliminary detention in some cases and increased the threshold for seizing criminal assets. She says that judges presiding over criminal cases should be anonymous and that prisoners should have to work to earn their food. Sánchez was foreign minister under Pedro Castillo when he was president. Castillo’s been sentenced to 11 ½ years in prison for conspiring to commit a rebellion. Sánchez has promised to use the pardon power if elected to release Castillo from prison. Peruvian voters generally view candidates as dishonest and ill-equipped to be president. Crime and corruption have surged in the country. But Peru’s economy has been solid because it is one of the world’s leading copper producers. Its economy grew more than 3% in 2024 and 2025 but that’s lower than the 5% to 6% growth it saw in the 2000s. 

“‘Psychological Torture’: Outcry Over Conditions at ICE Desert Detention Camp,” The Guardian, April 15, 2026

Camp East Montana, the U.S.  facility with the largest number of immigration-related  detainees, has become a health and human rights scandal after just nine months of operations, said Guardian reporter Alexandra Villarreal. It has a capacity of 5,000 with an estimated daily average of 2,505 imprisoned. Since the camp was erected last summer on the Fort Bliss army base in El Paso, Texas, there have been reports of deaths, sickness, harsh conditions, and abuse, she said. A young Venezuelan man held there said dust covered people’s blankets and clogged their airways. The air conditioning blasted constantly, leaving temperatures near freezing inside two tents the length of football fields. Rain leaked through the tarps so people woke up on wet mattresses, he said. “Everyone was coughing a lot – and with the same problem to breathe,” he told The Guardian.  The man said he was constantly uncomfortable, got sick himself, and witnessed people being refused medical care. He said  the food sometimes tasted rotten and made him sick and that he sometimes wasn’t fed, adding that others had the same experiences. According to other reports, detainees have caught illnesses including tuberculosis, Covid and measles. Three detainees have died. A staff attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project who visits the facility weekly said she’s talked to people there who can rarely leave the tents and haven’t seen the sun for weeks. “One of the declarants I spoke with described it as psychological torture,” said Charlotte Weiss, a feeling of being stuck, confined and isolated. “I speak to a lot of people who are so broken down by the conditions of detention that they are asking for a deportation order from the immigration judge, even [with] having a pending asylum claim, even having family members in the U.S., because the conditions are so horrific that they would do anything to get out.” The U.S. Department of Homeland Security emphatically denied that conditions were inhumane. The food is nutritious, detainees get medical treatment, and they can communicate with families and lawyers, the agency said. It denied that detainees are being denied access to sunlight or fresh air. “This is the best healthcare that many aliens have received in their entire lives.”

“Cuba’s President Projects Defiance in Standoff With the U.S.,” New York Times, April 12, 2026

The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, said on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press” April 12 that he is open to dialogue with the Trump administration but rejected the idea that he would step down if ordered to do so by the U.S. government. Díaz-Canel said he has not been asked to leave office and that he has not personally spoken to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He said his government and the Cuban people are prepared to fight back against a U.S. military intervention should one occur. Cubans are ready to “give our lives for the revolution,” he said. His comments “reflect how Cuba’s leadership is digging in while the U.S. authorities are focused on the war in Iran,” said Adam B. Ellick and Simon Romero of the New York Times. The United States has been blocking oil shipments to  Cuba, although it did not interfere when a Russian tanker recently docked there to provide a temporary lifeline. Cuba’s Communist leadership “is thought to be much more cohesive” than that of the Venezuelan government, which cooperated with the Trump administration after it abducted its president, Nicholas Maduro, the Times reporters said. Díaz-Canel firmly resisted the idea of changing the current governmental structure and of holding multiparty elections. “He also refused to commit to releasing about 1,200 political prisoners,” Ellick and Romero said. 

 

“Venezuela’s Prisons Still Full of Military Rebels,” Wall Street Journal, April 9, 2026

Although Venezuela has released hundreds of political prisoners since the United States government removed its strongman president Nicolás  Maduro from power, there’s an exception: military officers accused of rebellion. Juan Forero and Kejal Vyas of the Wall Street Journal write that “about 187 former servicemen, many of them senior officers, are still behind bars despite a much-touted amnesty for prisoners that the government passed under U.S. pressure, according to Foro Penal, a group providing free counsel to political prisoners.” Analysts say freeing them would threaten Delcy Rodríguez, the interim president of Venezuela and former Maduro deputy supported by the Trump administration to enforce its will. “Many of the officers are seen within the ranks as disciplined, professional figures who could not only rebuild the military but galvanize dissent against the regime,” the reporters say. They add that military officers accused of dissent have suffered torture, long periods of isolation, and the denial of medical care, according to U.S. State Department and United Nations officials. Igbert Marin Chaparro, who graduated at the top of his class in 1999 at Venezuela’s military academy, was arrested in 2018 and accused of plotting against the state. According to a State Department human rights report, his interrogators suffocated him with plastic bags, blasted him with tear gas and broke his ribs. He has endured years of torture and isolation, and, according to his sister,  has been denied medical care. Foro Penal says the Venezuelan government has jailed thousands of political prisoners over the years. The Journal reporters say “U.N. investigators last year reported that regime torturers suspended prisoners by their wrists, used electric prods on their genitals, and sexually assaulted female victims. Some have died in detention, human rights groups say.” Though hundreds of civilians have been released, 303 civilians in addition to the 187 servicemen are being detained. The amnesty law “is filled with loopholes that can be applied at the government’s discretion,” said Juan Pappier of Human Rights Watch. “And in the end, the courts decide – courts that the regime controls.” 

“Suit Says ICE Allowed Entries Without Warrant,” New York Times, April 3, 2026

Legal groups filed suit April 2 against the Department of Homeland Security alleging that the agency allowed federal  immigration agents to enter homes to carry out searches and arrests in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Such entries were carried  out on a routine basis, said the suit filed by Project Democracy, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota and the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Colombia. The suit was filed on behalf of six people in Minnesota whose homes were allegedly entered in violation of Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, said Times reporter Zach Montague. The six included immigrants who have lived in the United States for decades, he said. The suit said that “with guns drawn and masks on, DHS agents have left children hiding in closets, detained U.S. citizens and marched people in their pajamas out into the street in sub-zero temperatures.” The lawsuit filed in the District of Colombia said the Department of Homeland Security and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency adopted an undisclosed policy last year that allowed agents to force their way into homes without judicial warrants.  The suit said that previously ICE agents had been trained not to enter homes forcibly without a judicial warrant. Under the new policy agents made such entries based on an administrative warrant signed by ICE higherups.  The lawsuit claims that the Department of Homeland Security has estimated that more than 1.5 million people could be subject to forced entries based on administrative warrants. Agents have the power to forcibly enter a home when they have proper cause to do it, said Kristy Parker of Project Democracy, “but the Constitution requires them to go outside of the executive branch to another branch of government to have their case assessed, so that there’s some sort of reasoned, neutral inquiry.” Montague of the Times noted that Homeland Security “has maintained that all the individuals served with administrative warrants have already had an  immigration judge decide that they can be deported.” 

“Chavez Embodied Families Like Mine. Now, We Grieve.,” New York Times, April 1, 2026

In this essay, Times reporter Ana Ley recalls that the first thing she learned about American history in elementary school was about the Cesar Chavez grape boycotts. Her grandfather was a farmworker who was part of the bracero program, a partnership in which the United States relied on Mexican workers to alleviate labor shortages. Her teenage cousins worked 14-hour shifts during the summer in fruit and vegetable fields. In Hidalgo County, Texas, where she grew up, Chavez’s organization ran a legal aid clinic that helped low-income people find homes seized by the government  that were being auctioned. “Those services helped people like my mom achieve a dignified life, and she was able to buy our discounted family home – a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house with shaggy brown carpet,” Ley recalls. Chavez “embodied a civil rights movement that cemented Mexican power. He had spoken out on behalf of those who worked the fields. He had given pride to Mexican-Americans – like my relatives – whose voices had been muted. He had inspired so many that he was remembered with streets, statues and schools named in his honor.” When she read the Times revelations of the abuse that Chavez had inflicted on the young daughters of people in his movement, Ley said “I wept.” Juventina Herrera, 67, a resident of Hidalgo County who worked in the fields much of her life, told Ley that she felt as if there had been a death in the family. “It’s like having to bury your parents all over again,” she said. Ley says that like Herrera she fears that the movement will be harmed that secured protections for people like her grandfather, whose body and mind were ravaged by Parkinson’s, a disease linked to pesticides. The weight of the allegations hit particularly hard because of the way Latinos are targeted by the Trump administration crackdown on immigration, said Stephanie Alvarez, who teaches Mexican-American studies at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. “People are criminalizing Latinos, dehumanizing Latinos, kidnapping Latinos,” she said. “There’s a lot of emotions happening all at the same time because, at the same time, you want to defend your culture." Alberto Rodriguez, director of the program in which Alvarez teaches, said the revelations could shine a light on the contributions of other community leaders including women  who have been overlooked. “There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. This light is giving freedom to so many people, so  many women, so many advocates, so many scholars to now talk about things that really matter – that those people on the ground, those families were there – and shift the lens away from Chavez.” 

“As Freed Prisoners Celebrate in Cuba, Human Rights Groups Demand Clarity and Release of Protestors,” Associated Press, April 3, 2026

The Cuban government said April 2 it was going to release 2,010 prisoners, one of its largest prisoner releases in years, said AP reporters Milexsy Durán and Andrea Rodríguez.  The government described it as  a humanitarian gesture in advance of Holy Week. But the move was criticized by human rights groups, which said they’d seen no evidence that any of those released included any of the 1,214 people they registered as political prisoners. The government calling the release a humanitarian gesture “mixes things up to avoid giving the impression that it recognizes political imprisonment in Cuba,” said Manuel Cuesta Morúa, head of the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba. The nongovernmental group Justicia 11J said that “although  every release represents immediate relief, especially for families, in a context marked by the severity of conditions in the country’s prisons…we warn that this gesture does not constitute a change in the repressive quality of the Cuban state.” 

“Venezuelan Doctor in Underserved South Texas Is Detained by Agents,” New York Times, April 9, 2026

U.S. Border Patrol agents in Texas detained a Venezuela-born doctor April 6 who had been caring for Americans with chronic diseases living in an area with a shortage of doctors. Times reporter Miriam Jordan said the man, Dr. Ezequiel Veliz, “was featured in a New York Times article last weekend that detailed how a Trump administration policy had frozen visa extensions, work permits and green cards for citizens of 39 countries, forcing some foreign-born physicians out of U.S. hospitals.” Veliz  -- who had been treating people with hypertension, diabetes and other conditions – was named resident of the year in 2025 at UT Health, Rio Grande Valley and had entered the United States legally. He “was forced to withdraw from his position after losing his work permit because his immigration status ended.” Joseph Williams, an American citizen who is the husband of Veliz, said they were driving from the Rio Grande Valley to Houston when they were flagged down by Border Patrol agents at a checkpoint. Williams said he told them that Veliz was a foreign doctor in the process of obtaining a new visa. Veliz was ordered  out of the vehicle and fingerprinted. After a number of calls,  the agents told him Veliz was being detained because his visa had lapsed. “I can’t believe this is happening,” said Williams, who Jordan described as crying during their interview. “I do not know where he is now.” The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that the U.S. has a shortage of 65,000 physicians. Doctors from abroad have long helped to fill that gap and make up 25 percent of all doctors practicing in the U.S. But in recent months, says Jordan, “dozens of physicians had to leave their positions after the federal government suspended the processing of their visas and work permits because they were from countries on a travel-ban list. " A Times list named more than 100 doctors affected by the new policy. The doctors themselves compiled the list. The Department of Homeland Security didn't immediately reply to a request for comment.

“In Newly Obtained Video, ICE Version of Shooting Falls Apart,” New York Times, April 8 ,2026

When an immigration agent shot and wounded a Venezuelan immigrant in Minneapolis this winter, the agent said three assailants had beaten him with a broom and shovel for three minutes before he opened fire. But newly obtained video footage of the shooting  depicts the confrontation as lasting about 12 seconds and shows two men struggling with the agent, according to Ernesto Londoño, Mitch Smith, Haley Willis and Robin Stein of the New York Times. “It shows no sustained attack with a shovel,” they said. Almost immediately after the shooting the federal government depicted the injured man, Julio C. Sosa-Celis, as an attempted murderer and the agent as having been brutally beaten. Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused Sosa-Celis, and the second man, a Venezuelan by the name of Alfredo A. Aljorna, of committing “an attempted murder of federal law enforcement.” But the government’s version of events began unraveling when prosecutors dropped felony charges against the two Venezuelan men. The video footage “raises questions about why it took weeks for the government’s case to fall apart,” said the Times. After reviewing the video and other evidence, Chief Brian O’Hara of the Minneapolis police said “there is a snow shovel there, but it doesn’t appear it ever gets used as a weapon. There is no bludgeoning or anything." He said “it sounds like an unarmed person got shot running away.” The Homeland Security Department didn’t answer written questions submitted by the Times. Sosa-Celis was shot in the leg through the closed front door after he ran into his house to get away, the lawyer for Sosa-Celis said. He was not seriously injured. An official said federal prosecutors did not watch the video until nearly three weeks after filing charges against the two men. 

"Cutting Deals with Autocrats on Deportation,” New York Times, April 8, 2026

The U.S. State Department is under growing pressure from Trump White House aide Stephen Miller to cut deals with countries abroad to take deportees who under U.S. law can’t be sent back to their home countries because they would be in danger there. So in a number of cases they are being deported to third countries under autocratic rule with a record of human rights abuses, according to an investigation by Eileen Sullivan, Hamed Aleaziz, Megha Ragajopalan, and Pranav Baskar of the Times.  They said “American diplomats are under such pressure from the White House to cut deals that that they have put nearly everything on the table, records show: The United States will pay foreign security forces, ease visa restrictions or tariffs, finance public health services and even reconsider a country’s placement on U.S. watch lists.” A February  cable by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio put no limits on the countries with which agreements could be negotiated. Africa is a particular target. Deals have been cut with strongman leaders of Cameroon and Rawanda. “Migrants are being detained under an arrangement with Equatorial Guinea, an autocracy where torture is systemic. Others are being held in Eswatini, a monarchy with a history of human rights abuses, and South Sudan, which is teetering on civil war.” Rubio has referred to wanting to send “some of the most despicable human beings.” But many of those sent do not have criminal records. American officials told a federal judge that about 560 migrants were in immigration custody in early March waiting to be sent to a country other than their own. Of those, 139 had convictions, including for murder, rape and assault. The prisons in Eswatini are overcrowded and dilapidated, according to a State Department report. Although the Trump administration has told governments migrants should not be forced to return to their home countries or to anywhere where they will be persecuted, that is happening in some cases anyway. “The administration knows very well that these are countries where rule of law is very weak or nonexistent,” said Tutu Alicante, a lawyer from Equatorial Guinea. “They know these governments are going to immediately send people back to their home countries.”

“Dozens Dead in Massacre in Haiti Ahead of U.N. Force’s Arrival,” New York Times, April 6, 2026

A coordinated assault by the gang Gran Grif on at least eight towns in the Artibonite agricultural region of Haiti the night of March 29 left as many as 70 people dead. “The massacre took place a few days before the arrival of the first wave of a United Nations-backed, multinational force created to quell the spiraling gang violence that has gripped Haiti for years,” said Times reporters André Paultre and Frances Robles. “While the new Gang Suppression Force is expected to take a more aggressive approach than previous efforts, the slaughter in Artibonite underscored the challenges facing both the new force and the Haitian police in confronting the heavily armed groups.” The new security force, backed by the United Nations, isn’t expected to have its full contingent of 5,500 members until the fall. In 2025 almost 6,000 people died in gang violence. About 1.4 million people, more than 10 percent of Haiti’s population, have been uprooted from their homes because of the violence, the Post reporters said. A force of mainly Kenyan police officers arrived in Haiti in 2024 but could not stop the widespread killings. The new force “will be more militarized and act more independently,” they said.

“Children Make Up Half of Haiti’s Gangs. They’re About to Face a New Foreign Force,” CNN, April 6, 2026

As a new multinational force begins arriving  in Haiti to try to lessen the gang violence that has engulfed  the country, the foreign police and soldiers that are part of it could find themselves confronting hundreds of children that belong to the gangs. CNN reporter Caitlin Stephen Hu writes that according to experts, children make up about half of armed groups in the country. According to a United Nations report, at least 302 children in 2024 alone were recruited and used by gangs across the capital, Port-au-Prince. Most of the children were used in combat roles. “Last week, during a gang attack that left dozens dead in Artibonite, Haiti’s agricultural heartland, one video appeared to show a round-cheeked young boy waving a rifle and mugging for the camera,” says Hu. According to UNICEF, gangs drew in 200 percent more boys and girls in 2025. Children struggling to survive on their own are a major recruitment target. Wealthier gangs offer food and housing as enticements. Children get paid for such activities as guarding kidnapped people, ransacking homes, and monitoring police movements, according to the UN report. They are paid more if they are involved in kidnappings, hijackings and armed clashes. In some cases, desperate parents may turn over children to gangs, hoping they’ll be protected. Others are abducted or forced into sexual relationships. The Gang Suppression Force reinforcements arriving in Haiti aim to “break the grip of heavily armed gangs in the country, with an expanded mandate to aggressively pursue armed groups,” according to Hu. Child gang members could be forced to the front lines to face them. Experts voice concern about how those children will be treated. UN figures say that at least three dozen children have been summarily executed by police or vigilante groups since 2022. It’s hoped that the Gang Suppression Force troops will follow a protocol signed by the Haitian government and the UN requiring children in gangs to be appropriately detained and passed on to child welfare agencies in Haiti. “There’s a whole process of reconciliation that you do with the child and the community,” said Geeta Narayan, who heads UNICEF’s operations in Haiti. “They’ve often done horrible things, and it’s not a given that their family will want them back.” 

“U.S. Assures Colombian President He Does Not Face Charges, for Now,” New York Times, April 2, 2026

U.S. officials have assured the Colombian government that the country’s president, Gustavo Petro, does not face criminal charges right now related to an investigation by federal prosecutors in New York into his possible links to drug traffickers. Times reporter Annie Correal says U.S. officials may be offering that assurance because Petro’s potential successor as president, left-wing candidate Iván Cepeda, who is leading in the polls, hasn’t yet committed to Petro’s military strategy against powerful trafficking groups in Colombia including former leftist rebels involved in trafficking.  Petro, who is limited to a single term, may be able to influence Cepeda, who is a member of Petro’s party, this theory holds. Cepeda is known for his work on human rights and peace negotiations. The first round of presidential elections will be held May 31. 

“Venezuela Investors Are Bullish,” Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2026

Businesses from the United States, Colombia and elsewhere are sending executives to Venezuela, studying projects there, and in some cases making early investments to rebuild the country of more than 28 million people, said Juan Forero and Ian Lovett of the Wall Street Journal. Charles Myers, founder of Signum Global Advisors in New York, led a 55-member delegation last week to meet with Interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez, government officials and Venezuelan executives. Among those in the group were people from the United States, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, the Middle East and Europe. The Journal reporters described a very bullish Myers. ”Everyone on the trip was really impressed with two things,” said Myers. “How stable the government is and how stable the situation is. This is a country that after 27 years of economic repression is absolutely moving at light speed to turn the economy around and …open up to foreign investors.” Such “early movers,” noted Forero and Lovett, face “steep challenges in a  country that Exxon Chief Executive Darren Woods called ‘uninvestable.’ Venezuela is still an authoritarian state. The judiciary is politicized, the government has a history of expropriating businesses, and security services have detained executives and union leaders in the past.”