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Mexican Workers Are Engaging In Wildcat Strikes At The Border

Catalyzed by the Mexican government’s minimum wage hike in the northern border zone, wildcat protests in Mexico’s assembly-for-export industry, or maquiladoras, greeted the first weeks of the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). Workers temporarily halted production or walked off the job at mainly foreign-owned automotive and electronic factories in Ciudad Juárez, Matamoros, Agua Prieta and Cananea. A common link in the protests has been company non-payment of production and attendance bonuses typically offered to workers along with a daily wage.

GAO: Climate Change Is A Critical Cause Of Migration

As the movement of refugees strains countries worldwide and becomes fuel for political clashes in the United States, the Trump administration has eliminated guidelines that the government once gave to American diplomats about how to plan for the impact of climate change on migration and global security. In a report released Thursday, the Government Accountability Office recommended the State Department restore the guidelines so U.S. diplomats are prepared for major population shifts that could destabilize a country or region. "Without clear guidance, State may miss opportunities to identify and address issues related to climate change as a potential driver of migration," the report said.

Four Women Found Guilty After Leaving Food And Water In Desert For Migrants

PHOENIX (AP) — A federal judge has found four women guilty of entering a national wildlife refuge without a permit as they sought to place food and water in the Arizona desert for migrants. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernardo Velasco’s ruling Friday marked the first conviction against humanitarian aid volunteers in a decade. The four found guilty of misdemeanors in the recent case were volunteers for No More Deaths, which said in a statement the group had been providing life-saving aid to migrants. The volunteers include Natalie Hoffman, Oona Holcomb, Madeline Huse and Zaachila Orozco-McCormick.

The Scott Warren Case Is Part Of A Crackdown On Aid To Migrants

He offered food, water, and clothing to migrants on a deadly stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border. Now he’s facing twenty years in prison. Humanitarian groups fear the situation will only get worse. A year ago, two undocumented Central American immigrants who crossed into Arizona from Mexico found themselves in especially dire straits. The two immigrants, Kristen Perez-Villanueva and Jose Arnaldo Sacaria-Goday, had dropped their backpacks containing food and water while being chased by U.S. Border Patrol agents. Their journey into Pima County, on the Arizona side of the border, was high risk. More than 2,100 bodies of undocumented immigrants, many of them never identified, have been found there since 2001, according to the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office.

The Violence Of Bill Blocks & Shutdowns + Whimsical Resistance At The Border

Here's what climate refugees need to make it through a disaster. How would you fare? --- Next up, how the government shutdown targets survivors of domestic and sexual violence – plus the age-old story of colonial oppression gets a reboot via an outgoing Representative's bill block. Finally, Elizabeth Vega joins us to talk about the Tornillo occupation – and how to address the rise of imprisoned migrant children and families.

Need To Solve A Border Dispute? Look To Ethiopia Or Uzbekistan

Border disputes have recently taken on renewed importance, threatening political crisis in the UK, US and EU. Yet 2018 saw positive steps towards resolving some of the world’s most difficult border conflicts, between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and Ethiopia and Eritrea. What lessons can be drawn from these examples? International boundaries are not the same as international borders. Boundaries are invisible vertical planes extending upwards into airspace and downwards into the subsoil, marking the legal limit of states. Borders, on the other hand, are the practices associated with managing movement over boundaries, such as customs checkpoints, passport controls, and fences.

Trump To Deploy More Troops To US-Mexico Border On Semi-Permanent Basis

According to press reports yesterday, the Trump administration is preparing a semi-permanent deployment of the military on the US-Mexico border. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has requested thousands more troops to militarize 160 miles of the southern border in California and Arizona in a deployment that will likely extend to September, multiple administration officials told NPR. The deployment announced by Trump last October was scheduled to expire later this month. The announcement comes as the government shutdown approaches the end of its second week. The public face of the dispute centers on a relatively small amount of money to be spent jailing and deporting immigrants, which both parties euphemistically call “border security.”

On First Day Of New Year, US Attacks Migrants With Tear Gas

Another migrant caravan will leave Honduras while stranded Central American migrants in Tijuana face violence from U.S. officers. Reports of stranded migrants in the Mexico-United States border being fired with tear gas shells by United States border patrol surfaced Tuesday as another migrant "caravan," estimated at 15,000 people, is reportedly getting ready to leave Honduras on Jan. 15. "They say they are even bigger and stronger than the last caravan," said Irma Garrido, a member of the Reactiva Tijuana Foundation migrant advocacy group. The new caravan will probably be joined by more people from El Salvador and Guatemala. According to Garrido, they will not immediately attempt to reach the Mexico-U.S. border...

‘Plunge Protection Team’ Holds Emergency Meeting As Trump Chaos Sparks Fears Of Another Financial Crash

"The stock market goes up and down and the market is not the economy. But it is, for many people, their retirement or their college savings plan. And a lot of wealth has been wiped out because of the trade war, the tax cuts, and volatility not in the market but in the Oval Office." The deeply harmful government shutdown over President Donald Trump's demand for billions in border wall funding continued with no agreement in sight. From his vacation spot in Cabo San Lucas, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Sunday sent markets tumbling with a bizarre Twitter statement assuring the public that there is absolutely no reason to believe Wall Street is about to collapse—a move one reporter described as the "financial equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theater."

International Migrant Day, Solidarity And Struggle

Today, December 18th, the world celebrates International Migrants Day, and SOA Watch wants to express, above all, our solidarity with and love for all people who are forced to flee their countries of origin. According to the latest UNHCR report, "Global Trends: Forced Displacement 2017", 68.5 million people worldwide have been forced to leave their homes due to wars, famines, and other political conflicts -- 24.4 million of these people have received refugee status in the countries of destination. It is important to note that these figures do not reflect the magnitude of the horror that those who are forced from their homeland face.

Report-Back From The SOA Watch Border Encuentro

At the heart of this year’s School of the Americas Watch Border Encuentro in Nogales, Arizona/Sonora from November 16-18 was increasing awareness of the militarization and expansion of the US-Mexico border throughout Latin America and inside the United States, as well as the criminalization of immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees and people of color. Now in our third year, the Border Encuentro was a space to call for active solidarity at a time when all eyes are on the borderlands, and during a moment in which we see the unquestionable connections between the historic legacy of violence of the US in Latin America, the violent state responses to mass migration...

US Arrests 32 At San Diego Border Demonstration

U.S. authorities arrested 32 people at a demonstration Monday that was organized by a Quaker group on the border with Mexico, authorities said. Demonstrators were calling for an end to detaining and deporting immigrants and showing support for migrants in a caravan of Central American asylum seekers. A photographer for The Associated Press saw about a dozen people being handcuffed after they were told by agents to back away from a wall that the Border Patrol calls "an enforcement zone." The American Friends Service Committee, which organized the demonstration, said 30 people were stopped by agents in riot gear and taken into custody while they tried to move forward to offer a ceremonial blessing near the wall.

‘Not Your Average Demonstration’: Faith Leaders Arrested Demanding Demilitarization Of US Border

"In the face of unfounded fear, racism, and violence, courageous action is necessary." Dozens of faith leaders were arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border in California on Monday after they confronted border patrol agents, demanding the demilitarization of the area and calling on the Trump administration to end its detention and deportation of asylum-seekers. "How we act in these moments determines who we will become as a nation." —Bishop Minerva G. Carcaño More than 400 religious leaders and immigrant rights advocates attended the Human Rights Day protest, with many carrying signs reading "Love Knows No Borders" and "No Cages, No Walls."

Trump Is Forging His Own Gaza On The Southern Border

When a crowd is exposed to tear gas, an aerosol containing the chemical agent 2-chlorobenzaldene malononitrile (CS), nasal passages begin to run, eyes water uncontrollably and breathing grows short and painful. Those directly exposed can experience vomiting or diarrhea. Effects take hold within 30 seconds, and the symptoms can last up to 10 minutes, even after the air has cleared or the afflicted have managed to scramble to safety. For these reasons, nearly every nation in the world banned the compound’s use in warfare under the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993. Yet despite ratifying these agreements, the United States continues to utilize tear gas for domestic riot control. Police shot dozens of canisters at protesters over several days in Ferguson, Mo...

Socialism Beyond Borders

In an age of transnational corporations and global finance-driven speculation, socialist strategy is doomed if it focuses exclusively, or even primarily, on any individual nation state. Yet, at the same time, popular struggles for control over nation states are an essential part of a necessarily international strategy. This is my starting point in responding to Costas Lapavitsas (page 38) and his call for socialism to ‘start at home’. We must learn from the recent successes of cross-border movements and their distinctive capacity to counter the power of the huge corporate lobbies, most recently in the defeat of the TTIP trade deal between the EU and the US.

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Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

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Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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