Latin America

The organizatons are filing the lawsuit to challenge the agreements with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras that allows the Trump administration to send migrants seeking asylum in the United States back to Central America.

Shrouded in secrecy, the immigration courts run by the U.S. Department of Justice have been dysfunctional for years and have only gotten worse.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, almost 1,300 earthquakes have shaken the island since the end of last year.

EL CINCHADO, Guatemala (AP) — Less-organized migrants, tighter immigration control by Guatemalan authorities and the presence of U.S. advisers have reduced the likelihood that the hundreds of migrants who departed Honduras will form anything like the cohesive procession the term “caravan” now conjures.

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) — Hundreds of mainly Honduran migrants started walking and hitching rides Wednesday from the city of San Pedro Sula, in a bid to form the kind of migrant caravan that reached the U.S. border in 2018.

Alejandro Giammattei, 63, won the presidency on his fourth attempt in August for Vamos, a party founded in 2017 on the promise of “battling poverty and providing better opportunities.”

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemala swore in Alejandro Giammattei, a conservative physician opposed to gay marriage and abortion, as its new president Tuesday while the country’s outgoing leader exited amid swirling corruption accusations.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The United States began sending Honduran and Salvadoran asylum seekers to Guatemala in November and last week said it would expand the practice to Mexicans. The U.S. could also start sending asylum seekers from Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Brazil to Honduras starting as early as the end of the month under a similar agreement signed with that country. These developments stem from bilateral agreements Washington signed last year with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed alarm Tuesday at the “staggering number” of social activists killed in Colombia despite a peace accord aimed at improving conditions in poor, rural areas.

Since the aftermath of Hurricane María, scientists have warned that the island lacks proper attention and warning systems for such “physical threats.”

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemala will swear in Alejandro Giammattei, a conservative physician opposed to gay marriage and abortion, as its new president Tuesday while the country’s outgoing leader exits amid swirling corruption accusations.

SÃO PAULO (AP) — The Academy Award nomination for a Brazilian documentary about the impeachment of then-President Dilma Rousseff has once again laid bare the polarization of Latin America’s largest democracy.

According to an investigation, reports of the illegal eavesdropping operations were directly handed off to senior politicians of the president’s Democratic Center party.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — More than two years ago, Hurricane María revealed that Puerto Rico was utterly unprepared for a powerful hurricane despite its location in one of the world’s most storm-vulnerable regions.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haitians on Sunday remembered the victims of the massive earthquake that killed more than 100,000 people a decade ago, although the ceremony was marked by a protest against political mismanagement now and then.

LA MORA, Mexico (AP) — President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Sunday that a monument will be put up to memorialize nine U.S.-Mexican dual citizens ambushed and slain last year by suspected drug gang assassins along a remote road in the northern border region near New Mexico.

Latino Rebels Radio: January 12, 2020

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Stiletto heels. Clogs. Trainers. Tiny, child-size Crocs.

Activists placed hundreds of painted-red women’s shoes on Mexico City’s sun-drenched main square Saturday to call attention to gender-based violence in a country where, on average, 10 women and girls are murdered each day and less than 10 percent of the cases are ever solved.

BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — Uber said Friday it will stop operating in Colombia following stiff opposition from taxi drivers’ unions and a lawsuit that said the ride-sharing app was breaking local transport laws.

More than 40 3.0-magnitude or higher earthquakes have occurred since Tuesday.

GUAYANILLA, Puerto Rico (AP) — A new community has popped up in this earthquake-damaged town in southwest Puerto Rico: it houses 300 people, a dozen police officers and one macaw.