Susan van Gelder presents a mix of reports, information, commentary and dialogue about the ICE raids against immigrants in Southwest Detroit, as well as the actions to resist it.
Central America
World in View: Guatemala’s Indigenous-led strike defeats ‘Pact of the Corrupt’
January 25, 2024On Jan. 15, Bernardo Arévalo was inaugurated President of Guatemala. It was by no means assured that he would be able to take office. What finally allowed Arévalo to do so was a massive Indigenous outpouring. Now, many questions remain, for his government is far from being revolutionary.
World in View: Immigration: the view from Mexico
January 9, 2024The situation for migrants in Mexico is dire: the National Guard is used against newly arrived immigrants; gang members kidnap them and demand ransom from relatives in the U.S.; Mexican and U.S. authorities make the journey to the border excruciating.
Guatemalans rally against attacks on newly elected president
October 23, 2023A Guatemalan speaks, interviewed at an Oct. 19 demonstration in Chicago protesting the corrupt forces attempting a judicial coup against President-elect Bernardo Arévalo.
Latin America Notes: September-October 2021
September 21, 2021Cubans revolt and students speak out amid food and medicine shortages and human rights violations; and Latin America suffers under climate change.
Central America deal: troops at borders
May 8, 2021Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico agreed with the Biden administration to put more military at their borders to stop immigrants.
Cáceres, Presente!
March 11, 2021March marks the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Berta Cáceres, Honduran defender of the rivers, the Lenca people and life.
L.A. students march for DACA
December 1, 2019Participant report on the Nov. 12 students’ march protesting Trump’s repeal of DACA, which allowed undocumented migrants brought to this country as children the human right to work, to go to school and to live free of deportation.
Stop the Criminalization of Immigrants!
June 7, 2019Solidarity is needed with Central Americans seeking refuge and targeted by criminal policies of the Trump administration, with Mexico’s president knuckling under to Trump’s pressure.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2017, Part 1
July 2, 2017Readers’ Views on Philosophy and Revolt vs. Trumpism; Trump and the Left; Injustice to Immigrants; Anti-Woman, Anti-Labor Uber; ACT UP; From Iran; To Mexico; Why Read News & Letters?
Policies of exclusion challenged across the board and across the border
October 15, 2016Participant report of a cross-border protest at Nogales, Mexico, and Nogales, Arizona.
Women battle war, terrorism and anti-abortion fanatics
March 8, 2016Foregrounding the new formal solidarity between Trust Black Women with Black Lives Matter, we explore the thought and actions of women worldwide, including the struggle for reproductive justice in the U.S.; women fighting war and terrorism in places like South Sudan and Syria, the successful fight of domestic workers to organize, and the need to make the revolutionary content of such actions explicit.
World in View: Mexico’s ‘La Migra’
December 10, 2015Mexico takes millions of dollars from the U.S. to stop Central American immigrants from crossing Mexico’s southern border. Gangs prey on those who make it into Mexico.
Fight for $15 and Dr. King
April 30, 2015In Chicago, thousands march for a living wage, while in Los Angeles, protesters of all races marched downtown on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s 1968 assassination. They included low-wage workers campaigning to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, uniting with the movement against police killing of unarmed Black and Brown youth.
From Turkey to USA, women as force & reason fight inhumanity
March 5, 2015Another savage sexual assault and murder—this time in Turkey—brought forth thousands of demonstrators, mostly women, throughout the country and beyond. Özgecan Aslan was a student taking a bus home. Worldwide, women are not only railing against sexism and challenging men to change what is often deadly behavior and when not deadly, deeply oppressive; they are as well explicitly extending their critique to the state itself.
‘Trail for Humanity’ links immigration, environment, prisons
August 31, 2014Spurred by racist responses to busloads of immigrant children from Central America, a 300-mile march from Merced, Calif., to the Mexican border was organized.
World in View: Honduran youth flee
August 30, 2014The exodus of Central American youth without papers entering the U.S. has complex roots within Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, and in the U.S.’s long history of exploitative, militaristic relations with these countries.
‘Humane immigration reform now!’
March 24, 2014400 immigrant workers from Mexico and Central America and their U.S. supporters marched through downtown Los Angeles for “comprehensive and humane immigration reform now!”
Latin America in continuous struggle
November 22, 2013Resistance by Indigenous groups in Colombia; Indigenous Guatemalans resist Canadian mining company; teachers in Mexico protest “educational reform” law