The Latin American Report # 242

"Allowing millions and millions of people, many of them very bad people, to enter through the southern border is not sustainable. They're going to destroy the country. We're going to do the biggest deportation in history. We have no other choice." Donald Trump continues to appeal to his anti-immigrant rhetoric, although the cleanest and clearest truth—at least of Latin American emigration—sank in the Patapsco River with the six migrants who were repairing the Francis Scott Key Bridge when a cargo ship hit one of of its pilings. Only this Thursday—more than a month later—was the fifth body recovered, corresponding to a 49-year-old Salvadoran man who was on a truck at the time of the accident. The body of Guatemalan José Mynor López, 35, another of those repairing potholes in the bridge while Baltimore slept, has yet to be found. Trump, followed by many who uncritically assume his narrative, speaks of deploying the Army to go after undocumented migrants if he retakes control of the White House, and also of building new detention camps.

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Meanwhile, in Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp signed a law requiring state police to turn over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement those in their custody suspicious of being in the country without permission. The murder of a 22-year-old nursing student by a Venezuelan migrant provided the fuel to move forward with the legislation. On another latitude, but pointing to the same problem, Andrés Manuel López Obrador denied that the strengthening of security measures to stop migration on the Mexican side is due to pressure from Washington. On Thursday, 170 migrants deported from México arrived in Honduras, while more than 200 migrants from Latin America (Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Dominican Republic, and Venezuela) and Asia (Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Iran, Nepal, Palestine, and Syria) were "rescued" in a warehouse in the State of Mexico. The group included 10 minors, 28 women, and 170 men, who were waiting for human traffickers to continue their irregular journey towards the "American dream".

The weather has no mercy for Rio Grande do Sul

Nearly thirty people died, while another 60 are missing as a result of heavy rains that have lashed the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, since Monday. The head of the Palácio do Planalto went there to show his solidarity with the victims and to guarantee federal support. "Everything that is within reach of our government will be done to attend to the needs of the people who are being affected by these rains", Lula said via his X account. Throughout the state, interruptions of electricity and water services are reported, although this is a lesser problem considering the landslides and floods that swept several localities of Rio Grande do Sul, where rain is expected to continue this Friday. Some 10,000 people had to flee.

These violent weather episodes are attributed to El Niño. "I've never seen anything like this (...) it's all underwater, it's sad. And it's going to get worse (...) Who can sleep at night? We don't know how the water is going to rise, and when it reaches the door of the house you can't lift anything", a resident told AFP. It always seems to me that the civil defense systems in these countries are extremely inefficient. In Haiti, by the way, ten lives were also reported lost this Thursday in a landslide as a result of heavy rains. Many people in Brazil or Haiti could have been saved if civil protection services had been managed with greater precision. This is one of the points where Cuba's experience contrasts with its economic development, as there are very few fatalities here after hurricanes.

In Haiti, gangs are once again ravaging certain communities in Port-au-Prince, whose residents flee with everything they can.

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And this is all for our report today. I have referenced the sources dynamically in the text, and remember you can learn how and where to follow the LATAM trail news by reading my work here. Have a nice day.