Portside

Trump’s policies against immigrants are an intensification of the Obama administration’s targeting of Central American refugees through raids going after women and children in January 2016 as well as using large scale family detention as a deterrence mechanism aimed at stopping others fearing for their lives from fleeing to the US. The Trump administration is flagrantly exacerbating harmful U.S. immigration and foreign policies implemented for over a century.

They're peacefully resisting US-style neoliberal measures intended to crush the unions-a backbone of Mexico's social-justice movements. Taking union leaders hostage, murdering unarmed teachers and students, firing thousands, and closing one of Mexico's most progressive institutions are serious violations of human and labor rights, and of the rule of law itself. Now, 200,000 doctors to join teachers in Mexico national strike.

The Zika virus, and responses to it, have shone a light on the inadequacies of abortion and family planning laws in Latin America. Nevertheless, the Zika outbreak represents an opportunity for Latin America to review its sexual health policies and address long overdue issues, from access to contraception and abortion to a machismo culture that fosters sexual violence and discrimination.

The recent surge of minors at the border is a symptom of our current failed immigration policy. We need to continue our work with labor and the immigrants' rights movement toward a fair and comprehensive immigration reform for the U.S. - a better bill than the one passed last year in the Senate, which among other things called for doubling the current border patrol by hiring an additional 20,000-plus border agents.

Previously, unaccompanied child migrants were accepted by this country, sometimes even welcomed. Today, however, driven by racism, child migrants from Central America are being turned back, after risking their lives to free economic and political oppression, often fostered in their countries by the United States. Share the image below - Stand with the Children.

Efrain Rios Montt, who ruthlessly ruled Guatemala in the early 1980s, is currently standing trial for genocide. The burden of justice and nation healing falls on the Guatemalan people: it is their dictator who stands trial and their people who suffered under him. But Americans (and Guatemalans) ought to remember that Rios Montt had big friends in Washington. President Bill Clinton apologized in 1999, saying that the U.S. support for the death squads "was wrong."