Central America & Caribbean Archives - Page 32 of 48

Guatemalan Armed Forces Chief Dies in Helicopter Crash

General Rudy Israel Ortiz Ruiz was one of five military officials involved in a helicopter crash Wednesday morning. After the Fuerza Aérea Guatemalteca (Guatemalan Air Force—FAG) helicopter Bell 206 took off from Huehuetenango for a routine fly-over inspection of units along the Mexican border, the pilot rerouted from landing in Ixquisis to Las Palmas due … Read more

Majority of Americans Support Sheltering Unaccompanied Minors

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday revealed that 51 percent of Americans oppose President Barack Obama’s plan to fast track deportations for unaccompanied Central American children apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border. The online poll had a sample size of 1,566 people. The poll showed a divide in public opinion over how long the children should be allowed … Read more

Dear AP, Sometimes a Democracy Program Is Just a Democracy Program—Even in Cuba

For the past several years, with almost predictable regularity, The Associated Press (AP) has been producing a series of articles supposedly revealing the secret, unaccountable cloak-and-dagger misdeeds of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in its Cuba program. For all the implied sinister intentions, bureaucratic overreach and shades of John le Carré-like intrigue, though, … Read more

Beyond the Blame Game: Visualizing the Complexity of the Border Crisis

Much has been written and discussed in the last month about the causes of the migration of thousands of undocumented minors and women with young children from Central America’s Northern Triangle region (Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras) to the United States.[1] The debate has ranged from analyzing the so-called “pull factors” in the U.S. to … Read more

Monday Memo: USAID and Cuba – Mexican Energy – U.S. Immigration – Argentine peso – Bridge in Colombia

This week’s top stories: USAID is accused of running a secret program in Cuba; Mexican energy reform passes in the lower house; U.S. Republicans pass immigration bills before recess; the value of the Argentine peso drops over debt woes; a bridge in Montería, Colombia collapses. USAID and Cuba: In a statement this morning, the United … Read more

The EU has recognized that its Common Position has failed to improve human rights in Cuba. It’s time for the U.S. to do the same with its embargo.

When Louis Michel, then-development commissioner for the European Union (EU), met in 2009 with Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba’s foreign minister, he worried openly about the slow pace of EU diplomacy. “I think that if the European Union does not consolidate the normalization of relations with Cuba,” Michel said, “the Americans will do so before us.”1 He … Read more

The EU is engaged in a discussion that will yield no change in human rights conditions on the island. The U.S. would be wise not to follow the EU’s lead.

In March, the European Union (EU) and the Cuban government announced a renewal of bilateral talks on trade and investment. Lured by Cuba’s proposed social and economic reforms, including a new foreign investment law, the expansion of self-employment, and loosened travel restrictions, the EU agreed to return to the negotiating table for the first time … Read more

The Future of Latin American Studies

The field of Latin American studies has been a target for critics ever since it became a prominent feature of the U.S. academic landscape in the 1960s. Earlier critiques were quite severe, often permeated by the premise that studying Latin America from the North (and even the very concept of “Latin America” as an object … Read more

Bridge Institutions in Higher Education

The United States and Latin America are both struggling to find ways to improve participation in quality education in the face of a labor-market skills gap. But all too often, policymakers, businesses and educators have looked to elite universities as a way of meeting those gaps. While important for high-end jobs, labor market and social … Read more

The Dominican Republic and Haiti: A Shared View from the Diaspora

In a landmark ruling, the Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court last September stripped an estimated 210,000 individuals—most of whom are Dominicans born to Haitian sugar cane workers—of their citizenship, effectively leaving them stateless. The ensuing outcry from the international community has included Junot Díaz and Edwidge Danticat—two of the best-known contemporary authors from the island of … Read more

The Dominican Republic and Haiti: Shame

Juliana Deguis Pierre was born in 1984 in Los Jovillos, Dominican Republic, 72 miles (116 kilometers) west of Santo Domingo. Under the country’s constitutional recognition of birthright citizenship, Deguis—the daughter of two undocumented Haitian immigrants working in the sugar cane fields—was issued a birth certificate recognizing her Dominican nationality. Now 29 years old, she has … Read more