Refugees International applauds President Barack Obama’s leadership in hosting the September 20th Leaders’ Summit on Refugees on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly.
The Refugee Crisis at Home
Beginning in the summer of 2013, unusually high numbers of children, both on their own and with their mothers, crossed the southern border of the United States. The numbers increased again last fall, with some 21,500 family units apprehended at the U.S. border between October and December 2015 — almost three times as many as the…
Northern Triangle Temporary Protected Status National Letter
275 civil rights, labor rights, faith-based, immigrant, human rights, humanitarian, and legal service organizations respectfully request that El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are designated for Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
The MERCOSUR Visa: A Band-Aid for Ecuador’s Rejected Colombian Asylum Seekers
For years, Ecuador has been the destination for tens of thousands of Colombians seeking international protection. Fifty years after war broke out, an estimated 950 Colombians continue to cross the border into Ecuador each month, fleeing paramilitaries, guerilla groups, and organized gangs. Through its own refugee processing system, Ecuador has recognized roughly 60,500 Colombian refugees…
No Safe Spaces for El Salvador’s Youth
While the number of arrivals at the U.S. border has decreased this year, it’s not because less children are leaving El Salvador. Rather, the U.S. and Mexico have joined to intercept more unaccompanied children at Mexico’s southern border, so they’re not making it to the U.S. in the same numbers. There are also likely hundreds of…
“It’s a Suicide Act to Leave or Stay”: Internal Displacement in El Salvador
El Salvador has just achieved the grim distinction of becoming the murder capital of the world.
Two Countries and No Citizenship?
The Dominican Republic (DR) and Haiti share many things—a background of slavery, oppression, dictators, and the island of Hispaniola. Yet, in the DR, a history of racism and prejudice runs deep toward their Haitian neighbors who were often recruited for undesirable work in the DR’s sugarcane fields. In 1932, the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo massacred…
Life in “The Devil’s Door”
It is a Saturday evening in El Salvador, and my Refugees International colleague and I are riding in the back of a car with our heads on our knees. We are on our way to meet with a displaced family who are being hidden in a “safe house.” We have been asked to stay undercover…
The Many Victims of El Salvador’s Gang Violence
In January 2015, El Salvador’s media reported live as almost 50 residents of an apartment building furiously packed up everything they could before fleeing. This was not an organized evacuation for an oncoming hurricane or some other natural disaster. It was a frantic movement of people who had been ordered to get out of their…
Investigando los Desplazados Internos de México y El Salvador
Mexicanos y Salvadoreños siguen sufriendo ataques diarios contra los individuos, familias y comunidades a través de la extorsión, secuestros, violaciones y homicidios. Estos ataques son generalmente a manos de grupos y bandas criminales organizadas, pero a menudo, la policía y los militares están involucrados o específicamente orquestando eventos violentos. La inseguridad y la focalización de…