The organizations report that the administration in April re-arrested and forcibly transferred to third countries people who had previously been granted withholding of removal by US immigration judges and had prevailed on habeas petitions challenging the legality of their detention. The report documents an attempted transfer of individuals to Libya last year in violation of a court order then in effect.

Approximately 16,000 of the documented transfers have been to Mexico. That figure includes thousands of individuals the administration failed to acknowledge in a March 5 disclosure to a federal court. Roughly 1,400 additional people have been sent to 20 other countries, including Eswatini, South Sudan and Uganda. A March 2026 agreement with Costa Rica provides for regular weekly transfers.

The tracker reports that the administration has paid at least $44 million to receiving governments in connection with the agreements and has used the threat of third-country transfer to pressure detained immigrants into abandoning their legal claims.

Separately, the tracker reports that government attorneys have filed motions to “pretermit,” or dismiss without merits review, thousands of pending asylum cases in immigration court on the basis of Asylum Cooperative Agreements with Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Uganda. Citing data compiled by immigration advocacy group Mobile Pathways from Executive Office for Immigration Review records, the tracker counts nearly 9,500 such pretermissions as of February 2026. The following month, the Department of Homeland Security directed Immigration & Customs Enforcement attorneys to stop filing new pretermission motions but did not withdraw those already pending.

The administration has invoked a range of statutory and constitutional authorities to justify the transfers, including the Alien Enemies Act, and the suspension-of-entry provision at 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f). Federal judges have held several uses of those authorities unlawful, including in challenges to expulsions of Venezuelans to El Salvador and to forced transfers of people with final removal orders carried out without notice or an opportunity to raise fear-based claims.

From JURIST, May 5. Used with permission.

See our last report on the third-country deportations.

See our podcast “MAGA-fascism and the struggle in Libya”

Photo: Venezuelan deportees in Honduras. Credit: ICE via Wikimedia Commons

No imminent rapprochement is expected between Maduro and the opposition, but the talks have yielded a “social protection agreement” that should unfreeze billions of dollars in state funds from the international financial system. The money is to be gradually released from a UN-managed fund for healthcare and the power grid, though few specifics have been provided. According to the UN’s latest humanitarian response plan, 9.3 million Venezuelans are expected to be in need in the coming year. Poverty and hunger are widespread, while 7.1 million have fled the country since 2015 to try their luck abroad.

From The New Humanitarian, Dec. 2

Note: Chevron is also to take operational control of the Petropiar refinery near Barcelona in northeast Venezuela.

See our last posts on Venezuela’s political crisis, the sanctions, and the global food and energy crisis sparked by the Ukraine war. It should be noted that Venezuela’s food crisis well predates the Ukraine war.

Map: Perry-Castañeda Library

Castro also pledged during her campaign that she will “open diplomatic and commercial relations with continental China,” which was widely taken as meaning a switch of diplomatic recognition. Honduras is currently one of only 14 countries that recognize Taipei rather than Beijing. (The Hill, NYT, El Economista, Mexico, El Heraldo, Honduras, Taipei Times)

“It’s an attempt to balance the hegemony of the United States,” economist Ismael Zepeda of the Honduran thinktank FOSDEH told The Guardian. “Honduras wants to enter into the dynamic of saying if you do not support me internally, I have another ally who will give me the resources I need if I want to build megaprojects.”

One of these megaprojects is the Patuca III hydro-electric dam in marginalized Olancho department, La Miskitia region—being built by the Chinese firm SinoHydro, and bitterly opposed by the local Tawahka, Pech, Miskitu and Garifuna indigenous peoples. (Cultural Survival, Cultural Survival, International Rivers, BankTrack) SinoHydro was also involved in construction of the Agua Zarca dam—that which was being opposed by the martyred indigenous environmentalist Berta Caceres.

According to World Bank data, Honduras owes 4% of its $10 billion external debt to China compared to 0.01% to the US. The country’s principal creditors are international bondholders, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), and the World Bank.

But Honduras has traditionally been strategically important to the US; it has long hosted Joint Task Force Bravo, the Pentagon’s principal component for hemisperic policing. “The US will not let Honduras go because it is crucial for homeland security,” Antonio Yang, a Taiwanese Latin America expert and honorary professor at the National Defense University in Tegucigalpa. told the Financial Times.

And indeed, the incoming Castro administration has already started to equivocate. Gerardo Torres, the LIBRE Party’s secretary of international relations and a member of Castro’s transition team, this week said: “The new government will maintain relations with Taiwan. President-elect Xiomara Castro has been clear, these ties will be maintained. Nobody in the party wants to enter government distancing ourselves from the United States.” (Al Jazeera)

One senses quiet pressure from the US embassy behind this back-pedalling. In the past five years, three countries in Central America and the Caribbean have switched their recognition from Taipei to Beijing: El Salvador, Panama and the Dominican Republic. In all three cases, the US responded by symbolically recalling its ambassadors. But the hypocrisy of the US position is obvious: Washington itself has recognized Beijing instead of Taipei since 1979.

On Dec. 10, Nicaragua became the latest country to switch diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China, which is what prompted the seeming back-pedalling from the LIBRE Party. (BBC News, Al Jazeera)

It is the archaic fiction of “One China” that reduces Central America and Taiwan alike to diplomatic pawns in the New Cold War between Washington and Beijing. It is tragic to see the Central American republics, in their struggle to break free of Washington’s orbit, acquiesce in Beijing’s design to incorporate Taiwan into its own orbit—or, more ambitiously, its national territory. Yet another illustration of how a global divide-and-rule racket is the essence of the state system.

Map: Perry-Castañeda Library

The Dominican Republic’s President Luis Abinador announced Feb. 27 that work will begin this year on a wall along the country’s 376-kilometer border with Haiti. “Within two years we want to end the serious problems of illegal immigration, drug-trafficking and the transport of stolen vehicles that we’ve suffered from for two years,” said Abinader. Two weeks earlier, Abinader and his Haitian counterpart Jovenel Moise signed an agreement that included a commitment to take measures against “the wave of illegal migration” and to “reinforce border security and vigilance.” (AFP)

In January 2019, Dominican authorities started erecting a section of fence along the Haitian border at El Carrizal, Elías Piña province. But this sparked angry protests by Haitian immigrants living in the area, who threw stones at troops and erected barricades of flaming tires to block construction equipment. One protester was killed in clashes with security forces. (Dominican Today)

Some half million Haitians live in the Dominican Republic, with a population of 10.5 million, and have faced growing persecution in recent years.

Photo: Movimiento Socialista de los Trabajadores via Change.org

This wave of attacks has been particularly focused in the region of El Cibao around the city of Santiago, which has become a center of operations for ultra-right nationalist groups. The mayor of Santiago, Abel Martínez Durán, a member of the Central Committee of the ruling Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), has promoted hate campaigns against Haitian immigrants. Last year a tourist from Kenya, Frederick Marwan, was attacked by the Santiago police—apparently only because they believed he was of Haitian nationality. In addition to stirring up lynch mobs, the Dominican government has also been engaged in the arbitrary expulsion of Dominicans of Haitian descent in illegal deportation proceedings over the past years.

One of the most emblematic cases of racist violence in recent years was the murder of young Claude Jean Harry “Tulile,” who was found hanged in a park in Santiago in 2015—a crime that remains unpunished. According to the report “The Republic of Injustices” published in 2018 by the Rwgional Initiative for Investigative Journalism in the Americas, in the last decade the Dominican press covered 67 lynchings, of which 15 were against people of Haitian nationality. The real number of lynchings in the Dominican Republic is probably higher, with the majority of the victims being young black Dominicans.

Many Dominican media outlets amplify the racist and conspiracy-laden speeches of anti-immigrant public figures about a “silent invasion,” continuing a disastrous tradition that began under the long right-wing dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Following a 2013 supreme court decision eroding brthright citizenship, some 100,000 Dominicans of Haitian descent are threatened with statelessness—a policy that has been dubbed “La Sentencia.”

A statement issued by Caribbean regional rights groups anf popular organizations concluded: “We demand that the Dominican government cease policies which deny the rights of Haitian immigrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent. We demand an end to impunity for racist and fascist groups that incite lynchings, murders and mass expulsions of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent. We demand that the Dominican State sign international pacts and treaties that defend the rights of migrants, and approve laws against racist hate crimes. And we demand justice for all victims of racist lynchings, especially Claude Jean Harry ‘Tulile’ and Victor Pierre!”

Via UIT-CI, Aug. 23

The bulk carrier MV Solomon Trader ran aground Feb. 4 in Kangava Bay, Rennell Island, while loading bauxite ore in a cyclone. Because of the storm, it took salvage crews several days before they could reach the stricken craft. Compounding the damage, Indonesian-owned Bintan Mining Ltd, which chartered the vessel, continued to operate as the oil flowed into the sea, with other ships maneuvering around the wreckage, churning up the oil even more. Rennell Island, known locally as Mugaba, is home to some 1,840 people, who overwhelmingly rely on fishing for their livelihood. The spill threatens the East Rennell World Heritage Site, the world's largest raised coral atoll.

Bintan Mining is owned by Indo Bauxite Mining Group, which also has operatons in the Dominican Republic, and mostly supplies the Chinese market. (Radio Australia, Radio New Zealand, Weather Channel, UNESCO)

Photo via Radio Australia

Protests first broke out in October over the disappearance of funds from PetroCaribe, a project of Latin America’s Venezuela-led alternative integration that makes oil available to member states on favorable terms, freeing funds for local development. But Haiti has been saddled with debt for the oil provided through the program since joining in 2006. Meanwhile, $2 billion made available through the program for infrastructure and earthquake reconstruction was apparently siphoned off by corrupt officials. An investigation into the matter is pending. Unlike during last year’s “Kot Kòb Petwo Karibe a?” (Where is the PetroCaribe money?) movement, Moise’s ouster has now emerged as a demand. (Miami Herald, Haiti Libre)

Protesters are additionally angered by the government’s vote with the US in the OAS not to recognize the presidency of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. On Jan. 10, as Maduro was inaugurated and the Organization of American States voted to deny him recognition, Haiti for the first time voted with Washington and against Caracas—which has provided Haiti with some $4 billion in oil under the PetroCaribe accord. The resolution “to not recognize the legitimacy of Nicolás Maduro’s new term” was approved with 19 votes in favor (Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, United States, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, and Saint Lucia); six against (Bolivia, Dominica, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Venezuela); eight abstentions (Mexico, St. Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, and El Salvador); and one absent (Grenada). (Haiti Liberté)

Photo: Haiti Liberté

Nicaragua has aspirations to build its own interoceanic canal—with construction overseen by a Hong Kong firm. This places it in a race with Panama, which is seeking to expand its own canal to accommodate modern super-tankers. But Chinese capital is involved in both projects. Nicaragua has already tentatively broached dropping Taipei for Beijing—despite a backlash from opponents of the canal project, who have at times adopted Sinophobic rhetoric.

China's fast-growing economic presence in Latin America, and the strategic criticality of the Central American isthmus, spell bad news for Taiwan. Until 2007, all Central American nations officially recognized Taiwan as the legitimate government of China. Then Costa Rica switched allegiance, dropping Taipei to recognize Beijing. Panama is the latest to switch sides, leaving Taiwan with about 20 allies wordlwide. (Channel News Asia, June 14; BBC News, June 13)

If the number continues to dwindle, Taiwan could be reduced to the ranks of the world's "phantom republics." The obvious solution is abandoning the "One China" fiction and recognizing Taiwan and China as the two countries they really are. Ironically, Taipei's "One China" posture began as a bulwark of Cold War anti-communism, but is maintained today chiefly to avoid antagonizing Beijing—which views any move to make Tawain's de facto independence de jure as political heresy and an act of rebellion. So Taiwan, increasingly desperate for allies, is held hostage to a geopolitical game over a distant isthmus… 

Haitian immigrants and human rights organization questioned the police version, noting the increase in anti-Haitian sentiment following a September 2013 Constitutional Tribunal (TC) ruling that deprived thousands of Haitian-descended Dominicans of citizenship. "Nobody knows yet the reason behind the lynching, but it comes in the context of constant discrimination and violence against Haitians," the Robert F Kennedy Center for Human Rights' Santiago Canton said. Jean Harry was murdered just hours after a group of Dominicans publicly burned the Haitian flag in Santiago. As of Feb. 13 the authorities said they had arrested five members of the group. (The Guardian, UK Feb. 12, from correspondent; AlterPresse, Haiti, Feb. 13; El Nuevo Diario, Dominican Republic, Feb. 15)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, February 15.

The Interior Ministry reported that as of Jan. 9, only 5,345 people had applied for regularization—just 5% of the 110,000 people AI believes should be eligible. The Dominican government has put the number of eligible people at 20,000 and claims it has done its best to help people file their claims. Immigration director José Ricardo Taveras told the El Caribe news site that the government had set up more than 20 offices to handle regularization requests and had launched a big publicity campaign. But the media reported long lines at the offices, and AI charged that even people "who should have been able to have their Dominican nationality returned in a quick procedure have been waiting for months." "The simple fact is that when the vast majority of these people were born, the Dominican law at the time recognized them as citizens," Guevara Rosas said. "Stripping them of this right and then creating impossible administrative hurdles to stay in the country is a violation of their human rights." (AI statement, Feb. 1; Terra Argentina, Feb. 1, from Reuters)

On Jan. 28 AI reported that the Dominican authorities had deported 51 to Haiti the day before. The group included 30 children, ages seven to 13, born in the Dominican Republic, along with seven mothers and 14 other adults. They were traveling in two minivans to San Juan de la Maguana, in the western province of San Juan, where they expected to register for the regularization. However, according to AI the vehicles were stopped at a military checkpoint a few kilometers from the city. Officers told the passengers that they had to go to an immigration office in Elias Piña, near the border with Haiti, to get passes before entering San Juan. After arriving at Elias Piña, the entire group was deported to Haiti. The Dominican Interior Ministry claimed it had authorized their reentry, but as of Jan. 28 they were still in Haiti. AI noted the special vulnerability of the Dominican-born children, who were not Haitian citizens and were now in effect stateless. (lainformacion.com, Jan. 28, from EFE Verde)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, February 1.