A few days after the United States launched Operation Epic Fury in Iran, the Border Patrol changed its policy on visits to the border wall, denying a church group permission to pray there, “for their own safety.”
The Colibrí Center for Human Rights was a vital link between families and their missing loved ones. But now it's gone dark.
A year of military buildup on the border, walling off the Rio Grande Valley, and Caroline Tracey's debut book launch in Tucson.
The longtime migration expert talks about solutions, and what's missing in the debate around Biden's executive order to restrict asylum.
In June, President Biden issued an executive order restricting asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. The new restriction was supported by many prominent newspaper columnists—few of whom offered alternative solutions or examined the order’s impact on human rights, says Adam Isacson, a longtime expert on Latin America and U.S. immigration policy. “The Biden administration made a choice to restrict asylum at the border,” he says, “instead of adding asylum judges and officers to fix the asylum system.”
At the very least, Isacson says, journalists such as the New York Times’ Nikolas Kristof should acknowledge policy alternatives that would preserve protections for asylum seekers. “None of these columns talks about making the U.S. asylum system viable, and faster, adjusting it to a new era of historic worldwide migration. They don’t even mention it as an option to be discarded,” Isacson wrote recently.
In this podcast, we discuss solutions to fix the asylum system, and Isacson shares insights from a recent trip to Colombia and the impact that organized crime has on migration routes, including the Darién Gap. We also talk about migration at the border as extreme summer temperatures take hold.
Isacson directs the Defense Oversight Program for the nonprofit Washington Office on Latin America, in Washington, DC. He also contributes to WOLA’s Migration and Border Security program, which tracks the impact that policies have on migrants’ human rights, including their access to asylum.
The Colibrí Center for Human Rights was a vital link between families and their missing loved ones. But now it's gone dark.
An immigration judge fired by the Trump administration searches for meaning at the southern border.
He saved numerous lives by winning Mexican asylum cases that many said would be impossible to win.
ICE raids and detentions, together with a high-profile killing, have led Rio Grand Valley residents to mobilize—including even some local Republicans.
Independent news, culture and context from the U.S.-Mexico border.
