North America Archives - Page 44 of 62

San Diego County Refuses to Honor ICE Detainers

San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore announced yesterday that the county will no longer honor “detainer requests” from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The detainers, part of ICE’s Secure Communities program, ask state and local law enforcement agencies to hold potentially deportable individuals in jail for up to 48 hours, even if they are … Read more

Now We Have the Santa Barbara Killings

On two previous occasions, I have used the Americas Quarterly blog as a space to talk about gun violence. The incidents in Aurora (July 2012) provoked one, and another surfaced when remembering the events of Montreal’s Polytechnique Engineering School in 1989 where 14 women were gunned down. We can also recall Virginia Tech, Columbine, Sandy … Read more

Monday Memo: Colombian Hackers – PAN in Mexico – Colombia and FARC – UN Visits Guatemala – Bodou in Argentina

This week’s likely top stories: Candidate Óscar Iván Zuluaga is implicated in a Colombian hacking scandal; Gustavo Madero wins the PAN’s internal elections in Mexico; the Colombian government and FARC reach an agreement on drugs; the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights will visit Guatemala; Argentine Vice President Amado Bodou may be called to … Read more

Obama Sets Timeline for Action on Immigration Reform

In a meeting with law enforcement officials at the White House on Tuesday, President Barack Obama said that House Republicans have a “narrow window” of two or three months to push comprehensive immigration reform legislation through before midterm politics become a priority. Congressional elections will be held on November 4. At the meeting, Obama cast … Read more

Carlos Slim and Mexico’s Telecom Reforms

Every year around February, Carlos Slim Helú’s name is tossed around in the offices of Forbes magazine. Numbers are crunched, and Forbes’ editors determine if they will publish the Mexican businessman’s name with a 1 or a 2 beside it in their famous “World’s Richest People” list. In a country ranked 88th in the world … Read more

Colombian Group Accused of Spying on Peace Talks

The Colombian attorney general’s office announced yesterday that authorities have arrested a hacker suspected of spying on communications belonging to the government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—FARC) as they conduct peace talks in Havana. Andrés Sepúlveda was arrested in a raid on a Bogotá office for allegedly running … Read more

Revisiting Capital Punishment in the United States

The botched April 29 execution of Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett made headlines throughout the world, leading to appeals to either abolish capital punishment in the United States or revisit the methods used to execute by lethal injection (in this case, the nature of the drugs). Since 1976 (after a brief suspension of the death penalty … Read more

AQ Slideshow: NYC Immigrants March for Reform on May Day

Immigrant and workers’ rights activists and union members gathered in New York City last week to celebrate International Workers’ Day on May 1—also known as May Day. Representatives from unions like Local 375 NYC Board of Education Employees (AFSCME) and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and immigrant rights groups like New Immigrant Community Empowerment … Read more

Peña Nieto Proposes New Energy Rules

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto proposed new rules yesterday aimed at increasing oil production and boosting the economy. The proposed legislation includes the creation of eight new laws and the modification of 13 existing laws. Mexican Secretary of Tax, Luis Videgaray, and Secretary of Energy, Pedro Joaquín Coldwell, have said that, with the exception of … Read more

Virginia Grants In-State Tuition to DACA Recipients

Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring announced on Tuesday that undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children and are granted legal presence through the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program would qualify for in-state tuition at the state’s public colleges and universities. In a speech at Northern Virginia Community College’s … Read more

The Future of Québec Independence

On April 7, 2014, Québec voters chose to elect a majority Liberal government, and handed the pro-independence Parti Québécois (PQ) its worst defeat ever. Since then, speculation has surfaced about the future of the Québec independence movement. In his first post-election press conference, Québec’s new premier, Philippe Couillard, struck a positive note when he was … Read more

Will Mexico’s Telecom Reform Hurt Internet Freedom?

On March 24, Enrique Peña Nieto presented the Mexican Senate with a bill for a new telecommunications law that complements the constitutional reforms he approved in 2013. The legislation proposes, among other things, to promote competition in the sector, improve telecom services, and regulate the radioelectric spectrum through the new telecommunications regulator, the Instituto Federal … Read more

AFL-CIO Issues Immigration Recommendations to DHS

The AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions in the U.S., released a memo on Monday outlining steps that the Obama administration can take to alleviate the burden of immigration enforcement on immigrant workers and families in the absence of congressional action on comprehensive reform. The memo, titled Recommendation on Administrative Action on Immigration, calls on … Read more

Dangerous Liaisons: Organized Crime and Political Finance in Latin America and Beyond by Kevin Casas-Zamora (editor)

What happens when a government is unwilling or unable to protect its citizens from organized crime? The proposition was tested recently in Michoacán, when “citizen self-defense forces” took up arms against the Knights Templar cartel in the absence of the state’s ability to protect them. Ultimately, federal troops and police joined the citizen militias to … Read more