​The US and Venezuela conducted a joint military operation in Venezuelan territory that killed Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, better known as “Niño Guerrero”, the leader of Tren de Aragua.

US President Donald Trump announced the killing on Friday afternoon on his social media website Truth Social, accompanied with xenophobic and bigoted statements about migrants, and a video he claimed showed the assasination.

At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua, one of the most bloodthirsty Terrorist Organizations on Planet Earth. Before I returned to office, Joe Biden opened our Southern Border to millions of Illegal Criminals, and allowed this foreign army to rape, maim, and murder American Citizens with total impunity. During my Campaign, I pledged to expel these monsters from our Country, and bring Justice to the families of those they slaughtered

-US President Donald Trump

Donald Trump has often exaggerated the power of the Tren de Aragua as a rationalization for migration crackdowns, and as a justification for the US attack on Caracas that captured former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January.

Venezuela confirmed the operation shortly afterwards in a statement by the Ministry of Popular Power, saying the mission was “a joint operation between Venezuelan and U.S. security agencies in the southeastern part of Bolívar State.”

“We commend the work of all the officials, security agencies, and institutions that participated in this successful operation,” continued the public statement.

The operation represents a dramatic shift in relations between the Venezuelan and US governments. Since current interim President Delcy Rodriguez was installed by the US, she has taken a submissive attitude to US demands, unlike her predecessor.

Venezuelan security forces also undertook a special operation targeting illegal mining in the Orinoco region of Bolivar State this week ahead of a visit by potential US investors who want to exploit mineral reserves in the region.

​Most of the region is currently controlled by non-state armed actors, including Colombian rebel groups. The Venezuelan operation did not target rebel groups, however, rather a Venezuelan prison gang that exerted effective control over the Las Claritas Mine in the south of the country.

​Rodriguez seems eager to please Washington DC. But there is a large difference between prison gangs like the Tren de Aragua, and ELN and FARC dissident rebels, who have decades of experience waging asymmetrical warfare against capable military forces and relatively good relations with the Venezuelan government.

​Nonetheless, the killing is a symbolic victory for the Trump administration as well as a powerful example of the attitude the new Venezuelan client state is taking towards US policy.

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The administration of Donald Trump has rolled the “Wars” on terrorism, drugs, and migration into one. And the US using the resulting “omniwar” as a justification for a massive increase in US power projection across the Western Hemisphere.

​The North American country is imposing a level of aggressiveness and direct intervention in the region not seen since the height of the Cold War. Through military strikes, economic threats, naval blockades, drone strikes, election interference, and favors to Latin American leaders who subordinate themselves to US interests, Trump has employed strongman tactics to get what he wants in Latin America.

​The tactics have not achieved a reduction in drug flows to the US, increased security, or a reduction in power of the groups the US considers “terrorists,” but members of the administration have made it increasingly clear that those were never the underlying motives for US actions.

​Trump spokespeople have adopted the portmanteau “Donroe Doctrine,” to describe US plans to “reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere,” according to the 2025 US National Security Strategy.

​The nickname is a variation of the Monroe Doctrine —a legal argument that was invoked to justify US assassinations, invasions, blockades, the financing of death squads, and the installation of dictatorships across the Americas, primarily but not exclusively, in the 20th century.

​The Monroe Doctrine led to egregious human rights violations across the Americas and a history of covert as well as open US interference and intervention in the region that most people today strongly reject.

However, it did largely achieve the goals of its proponents. US expansionism created an effective “Empire” in the vast majority of Latin America. States in the region either became clients or subordinates, or they risked becoming active enemies of the US.

​Under Trump, however, US actions have been chaotic, self-contradicting, and at times even counterproductive (even from the point of view of those who espouse a return to some of the darkest days of Latin American history)

Under Trump, however, US actions have been chaotic, self-contradicting, and at times even counterproductive (even from the point of view of those who espouse a return to some of the darkest days of Latin American history)

Military actions have yielded mixed results and have failed to achieve either increases in security in the regions where the US military is operating or the flow of drugs.

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Peruvian elections go to a recount

The final round of Peruvian elections is almost certain to go to a recount that could last days or even weeks. After the initial “fast-count” showed leftist candidate Roberto Sánchez with a narrow lead over his right-wing opponent, Keiko Fujimori.

​The official “slow-count,” as of 5:42 a.m. Peruvian time, showed Fujimori with a less than 1-point lead, with 90% of the vote counted (50.3% for Fujimori, 49.8% for Sánchez).

​Keiko Fujimori is the daughter of controversial strongman President Alberto Fujimori, who was jailed for crimes against humanity. She has run on a platform of security crackdowns on organized crime and extortion, as well as

​Early voting data showed Fujimori dominating the capital, Lima, carrying the urban vote and the coast, while Sánchez swept the rural vote and the mountainous Andes.

Following the completion of the fast-count, Sánchez told supporters Sunday afternoon that he maintained an “important lead that reaffirms the will of the people, who want democracy and justice.”

Fujimori described the initial results as a “technical tie.” She did not claim victory, instead telling supporters, “Every single tally sheet must be counted.”

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Bolivia passes law allowing use of military against protesters

Bolivia’s legislature has passed a law granting President Rodrigo Paz the authority to use the military to clear roadblocks set up by antigovernment protesters.

Protests, which have now stretched into their second month, have erected 100’s of roadblocks, which authorities claim is causing food and fuel shortages in the interior of the country.

The law also grants broad powers to military forces, and “presumed legality” for their actions, including utilizing violence against protesters.

The US has expressed strong support for Bolivian protesters, falsely accusing them of links to narco-traffickers in the country.

Election board rules out any possibility of fraud in first round of Colombian elections

Colombia’s top electoral authority, the National Electoral Council (CNE), confirmed the outcome of the presidential election’s first round after finding no evidence of the fraud alleged by outgoing President Gustavo Petro.

In a ruling that followed the scrutiny of votes, the CNE confirmed that far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella and leftist Senator Ivan Cepeda were elected to the second round of the election.

The scrutiny, which corrects wrongly counted tally sheets, found no evidence of mass fraud that could have changed the outcome.

President Petro Gustavo has accused the electoral board of fraud via voiding the registration of thousands of voters. Leftist presidential candidate Ivan Cepeda initially supported the claims, but quickly abandoned them after a cursory examination by his election campaign.

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Colombia’s leftist presidential candidate, Senator Ivan Cepeda, said Sunday that he does not accept the preliminary results of the first round, which saw far-right attorney Abelardo de la Espriella outperform polls to win.

In a speech before supporters, Cepeda called on electoral authorities to scrutinize the alleged last-minute registry of hundreds of thousands of citizens to the National Registry, which organizes the election rolls.

There is a discrepancy that we want to verify regarding the electoral census. And that is not just any discrepancy. we are talking about 885,000 people or ID cards. We want — because we are serious people — is that to be clarified.

Senator Ivan Cepeda

The leftist candidate, who was considered the frontrunner in the polls, said that his political party was verifying the results in response to “atypical voting” reported by an “indeterminate number of polling stations.”

“Only when the scrutiny commissions leave this matter completely clarified, clearly and rigorously clarified, will we make a statement on tonight’s results,” said Cepeda.

The leftist leader additionally claimed that hundreds of thousands of people were denied the right to vote because polling stations were moved to different locations. He also condemned “undue intervention by foreign governments,” mentioning Ecuador by name.

According to the preliminary count, Cepeda received 41% of the votes against 44% of De la Espriella, who had been trailing the leftist candidate in virtually all the polls.

President Gustavo Petro also refused to accept the results after months of clashing with the National Registry over the outsourcing of the election logistics to a company that is owned by convicted fraudsters.

Human Rights Watch called the rhetoric an “attack” of Colombia’s Registraduría, the body which oversees the National Registry.

Observers and NGOs who monitored elections stated during the pre-count that elections occurred without incident.

De la Espriella condemned Cepeda and Petro for asking that the vote be scrutinized.

“Petro and Cepeda, you two criminals—don't you dare, don't even think about disregarding the will of the people, because there is a people here who will stand up to you and defeat you,” said De la Espriella in a speech from Barranquilla, after the preliminary results of the first round were announced.

He further referred to Cepeda as a “narco-trafficker,” and Petro as a “drug addict.”

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The second round of presidential elections in Colombia will be a face-off between ultra-right wing outsider Abelardo de la Espriella, and leftist Senator Ivan Cepeda.

First-round voting today occurred without serious incident despite security concerns, de la Espriella leads narrowly over Cepeda. With 90% of the vote counted, de la Espriella led his left-wing opponent by just under 3% of the vote.

De la Espriella, best known as a high-profile defense attorney, is running a populist campaign inspired by Bukele in El Salvador and Milei in Argentina. Calling himself “the Tiger,” he has promised “iron first” crackdowns on criminal armed groups and corruption as well as economic austerity programs in the country.

Cepeda largely represents a continuation of the policies of current leftist President Gustavo Petro. The Colombian Constitution does not allow re-election to the presidency.

Cepeda’s allies have accused the United States of meddling in elections.

The final round of voting will take place June 21.

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At a march organized by various social sectors in El Alto last weekend, as thousands of demonstrators marched toward the seat of government, Plaza Murillo in La Paz, the mood was divided. Most were demanding better economic conditions, more political representation, or new elections. Some chanted that right-wing president Rodrigo Paz Pereira will “burn like a chicken,” in reference to the president’s father, former president Jaime Paz, who suffered severe burns in a plane crash during the military dictatorship. None of the protesters, however, mentioned Evo Morales.

​Protests in Bolivia have now stretched into their fourth week. Much of the center of the country, including the capital La Paz, is paralyzed. Blockades stretch from the Peruvian border to the El Alto airport, as roads to Cochabamba, Potosi, and Oruro remain sites of active demonstrations.

​The cost of basic food staples in some areas has risen in response to protests, and the government claims La Paz is running out of food, fuel, and medicine. The government, and even some US media, have framed former Bolivian President Evo Morales as the mastermind of ongoing demonstrations. He isn’t.

​The still-growing protests oppose neoliberal austerity and land reform policies, a cost-of-living crisis, persistent inflation, and politicization of the judiciary (releasing 2019 coup plotters while jailing socialist former president Luis Arce and wanting to jail former president Evo Morales). The protests are diverse: social organizations, national unions, and indigenous movements have all contributed collective, if at times uncoordinated, efforts.

​Jorge, one protester with the Kataristas, an indigenous social movement formed in the 1970s, told Pirate Wire Services in El Alto, “This government is conducting a war on indigenous peoples and the poor, they are making it impossible for us to live.”

​The Paz government is considering declaring a “state of exception,” which would grant extraordinary powers to security forces and suspend some civil rights in the country.

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​Much of the media, right-wing politicians, and even the Paz government argue that protesters are “bought out”, controlled, or gullible victims being financed by former leftist president Evo Morales.

​Some politicians and commentators have alleged that the social movements active in the current uprising against the Paz government, including the Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB), the Kataristas, the Six Federations of Cochabamba, the Coca Growers’ Union, FEDECOMIN, the Rural Teachers’ Union, and the Transportation Union, have been co-opted by the now-splintered MAS political movement.

​Others, like US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, go even further, saying that the groups, and Morales, are “terrorists and drug traffickers.” The Vice Minister of Social Movement and Indigenous Justice, Jorge Garcia, has made similar allegations, which have been shared by other prominent government and right-wing politicians. Even the Washington Post, AP, Al Jazeera, BBC, and other mainstream newspapers of record have claimed that the protesters are “allied with Evo Morales.”

​Is there any truth at all to those claims? Where did the protests in Bolivia come from? Is anyone “controlling” them? Is Morales really leading them?

​Morales has at times denied it, saying, “It doesn’t surprise me that they keep blaming me for everything. For years, they’ve accused me without evidence, and I’ve faced dozens of trials in courts, many of them biased and controlled by those in power.”

​But he also seems eager to utilize the protests in an attempt to reclaim some of the political capital within Bolivia’s left he has lost in recent years.

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Morales’s political party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), dominated Bolivian politics for almost two decades. But the movement fractured into numerous factions under the previous government of leftist Luis Arce, a feud within the MAS that included Arce initiating the legal process to jail Morales for allegedly fathering a child with a 15-year-old girl while in office.

​Morales called for Arce to be jailed in return, while actively working to tank his government. MAS effectively imploded as a result, leaving Bolivia’s left politically weak and fragmented, at least in the halls of power. The fracture also resulted in bad blood between the MAS factions, and left Morales with significantly less power and influence over the Bolivian left more broadly.

​Arce was jailed by the new right-wing administration in December over allegations of corruption when he was the Finance Minister under Morales.

​Protests began in early April, when farmers and miners blocked key highways and trade routes. The blockades were initially sparked by laws aiming to reform land titles in Bolivia, which would have privatized mineral deposits in indigenous territories, allowing corporations and the state to begin exploitation projects in the region.

​The protests grew in intensity, as well as scope, in mid-May, and at times turned violent amid brutal police crackdowns.

Paz scrapped the controversial mining legislation in May, but protester demands expanded as state repression ramped up, and most of those demonstrating now call for Paz’s resignation from office.

Morales retains considerable regional support in the Chapare region, but more nationally, his influence has waned considerably. Most of his calls to action are done using social media, including his personal account and the news agency he helped found, Radio Kawsachun Coca.

​There is no doubt that Morales supports the protests. On April 13th, Morales, from his personal Twitter account, denounced Paz’s attempts at land reform, which he linked to the “coup plotter Jeanine Áñez,” the former right-wing president who took over after disputed elections in 2019. He claimed the law would hurt the indigenous rural poor and be a gift to multinationals, big banks, and corrupt politicians in the state, including those linked to the Libre Party of far-right former president, and Paz’s second-round opponent, Tuto Quiroga.

​On May 12th, Morales put out his first defence of the demonstrators, arguing that “The anger in the streets won’t be covered up with slander and judicial persecutions. The people are moving from patience and resistance to rebellion against neocolonialism and neoliberalism.” He added that “As long as there are sellouts, racists, discriminators, landowners, and exploiters, the people’s fighting spirit will never disappear.”

​Morales has also condemned violence at demonstrations multiple times, urging “the government and the people to find peaceful solutions.”

​But Morales is not leading or organizing the demonstrations. News outlets have continued to claim that the protests are mounted by “allies of Evo Morales,” but not a single protest group has asked for Morales to be reinstated, or even to be brought back into political life. No group outside of his immediate influence have demanded criminal charges against Morales be dropped.

​Instead, many of the social movements present have rebuked Morales publicly.

​In the last election, movement leaders from key workers’ unions and indigenous groups broke off from the left to endorse the now-president, Paz and his party, the Christian Democratic Party (PDC). PWS spent four days with the protesters, interviewing their leaders, as well as left-wing politicians. None of them expressed any alliance with, or support for, Morales.

​Most leaders who spoke with PWS recognized progress made between 2006 and 2015, when Morales was in office, but then criticized his actions afterwards, as well as the MAS overall, particularly subsequent president Luis Arce, now Morales’s sworn enemy.

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When asked who they voted for in the last elections, almost universally say that they supported Paz (or, more accurately, his vice-presidential candidate, Edmand Lara) in an election between two right-wing leaders, but that they now feel betrayed by the administration. The terms “Masista” and “Evista” are themselves insults screamed by protesters at counter-protesters and security forces, an action that shows their enmity for Morales.

Yet, the government and the right still say those same groups that got them elected are with Morales, rather than voicing genuine concerns. Part of that came from the popular conspiracy theory, birthed in the second round of the election, that Morales and the MAS signed a deal with the Paz’s political party, the PDC. Shortly after taking office, Paz’s vice-president, Lara, repeated the theory.

PWS was unable to find any evidence to support these claims.

​Even the Ponchos Rojos, the aymara militia who are among the most radical left-wing groups at protests, do not side with Morales openly. The groups embrace violence as a tool against state power and marginalization, and one of them called for civil war last week. A manifesto published last week by one leader included a list of demands. Morales was not mentioned.

​There are small factions of the Ponchos Rojos who have hunkered down with Morales in the Chapare since arrest warrants were issued against him, to protect him as his personal ideological guard. They have said anyone who enters their territory “should be ready to die.”

​But Ponchos Rojos, who spoke to PWS in La Paz and El Alto, wanted nothing to do with Morales. One of their leaders, when questioned last week, said,“We are not affiliated with any politician or political party. We are here to defend the rights of indigenous peoples, our sovereignty, and our lands, against a corrupt and incursionist government.”

​Yet, La Derecha Diario, a far-right tabloid that backs right-wing autocracies in Latin America, wrote “Evo Morales gave weapons to the Red Ponchos to invade the city of La Paz,” and, like the Trump administration, claimed protesters are“staging a coup d’état.”

​The newspaper has also propagated the nonsensical claim, without evidence, that Colombian guerrillas are deployed among the protesters.

​Morales undermined his successes as president through a series of damaging and self-inflicted actions. He ran for president again in 2019 despite losing his constitutional referendum to extend term limits before he was removed by a right-wing coup.

​The accusations of statutory rape of underage girls are credible. Morales is also accused of using blockades of medical supplies and food to achieve political goals while in office. Some of his policies set the stage for the multiple crises of the mid-2020s, giving us the current political landscape.

​Without those actions, the violent government of Jeanine Áñez, which killed dozens of protesters in a brutal crackdown, might have never existed. Many leftists blame him, and his ego, for squandering the good will that two decades of socialist rule brought to the country.

​Morales has a lot to gain politically from these protests, which could, in theory, bring about a left-wing government. For the moment, however, Paz is holding firmly onto office. And if Paz does resign, his vice-president is even more adamantly anti-Morales and has vowed to capture Morales “by any means necessary.” Lara has recognized that “Evo is not behind all of the mobilizations,” and urged “not to demonize the protests and link them to Evismo.”

​But the attempt to claim that Morales is somehow a shadow “puppet master” of protesters is politically expedient for both the Bolivian right and Washington, D.C.

​The government needs a scapegoat for their problems. Admitting that widespread popular discontent and backlash stem from their policies is, to them, unacceptable. They have instead chosen to use a well-worn playbook by states facing a genuine uprising, calling protesters thugs, terrorists, and narcotraffickers, in an attempt to drum up support for martial law.

Joseph Bouchard is a journalist and researcher from Québec covering security and democracy in Latin America, currently based in La Paz, Bolivia. His articles have appeared in Drop Site News, The Intercept Brasil, Responsible Statecraft, and Le Devoir, among others.

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Adriaan Anselma, executive editor of Colombia Reports, believes that the emerging front-runner for the right doesn’t want to only apply “iron fist” tactics against crime, he wants to crack down on dissent as well.

The veteran reporter says that the emerging populist, who is an open admirer of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, represents a return to “criminalizing opposition in the name of security concerns.”

He isn’t alone. Many journalists in the country have criticized the candidate as a would-be strongman who represents a return to some of the darkest days of Colombian politics, when right-wing death squads eradicated entire leftist parties, even assassinating the father of current leftist front runner Ivan Cepeda.

Meanwhile, after a contentious campaign of infighting, right-wing political machinery has finally consolidated behind Abelardo: including some of the most corrupt clans in the country.

Although he claims that Cepeda will make Colombia “the next Venezuela,” it isde la Espriella’s platform that threatens democratic rule.

You can hear more in this week’s episode of Pirate Wire Radio.

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Colombian Presidential Elections Sunday

The formerly three-way race in Colombia, according to recent polls, has likely come down to a face-off between leftist Senator Ivan Cepeda and ultra-right outsider Abelardo de la Espriella.

De la Espriella has surged recently in polls at the expense of his main opponent on the right, right-wing Senator Paloma Valencia.

At PWS we did a profile on the self-proclaimed “Tiger" yesterday, but the developments keeps rolling in. Sunday night de la Espriella was endorsed by right-wing businessman and notorious vote-buyer, Alex Char.

The Char clan holds considerable power on the northern coast, including a sophisticated “get-out-the-vote” machine that has often veered into the gray areas of electoral law. The endorsement is much more than symbolic — it puts right-wing “machinaría,” built over decades, behind the ultra-right wing candidate in the second round.

Meanwhile, Sunday night Colombian journalists exposed payments of over a quarter of a million dollars to Abelardo from Chavista minister Alex Saab, now detained in the US after being extradited from Venezuela over money-laundering charges.

De la Espriella, a defense attorney, represented Saab in Colombian courts over similar charges..

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Cuba: blockade tightens as does rhetoric

Trump’s fuel blockade on the Caribbean country has depleted critical fuel and food supplies. This week, Cuba received the first of three humanitarian shipments from China, expected to total 60,000 tons of rice.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel thanked China in public statements, as well as the European Union, which has condemned the illegal US blockade.

In response the the statement, Colombian President Gustavo President called on his government to “spare what can be spared” in a humanitarian mission to Cuba as well, congratulating China on their efforts.

Rubio called Cuba a “threat” to the entire hemisphere this week, and Trump again dropped cryptic comments about a potential “deal”, or regime change. He isn’t sure.

Aggressive US “Gunboat Diplomacy” in Latin America seems well received by leaders who consider themselves Trump allies, like Milei and Bukele, but it is polarizing much of the rest of the region, who resent what they view as Imperialistic efforts to impose US priorities on the country through violence and threats.

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Bolivia: Protests aren’t ending any time soon

Growing protests in Bolivia have blocked roads across the country and effectively shut down the capital, La Paz. Demonstrators are hoping to put pressure on Bolivia’s right-wing President Rodrigo Paz to resign just six months after taking office over his government’s austerity measures, with his alignment with the US another divisive issue.

The government has increasingly demonized the mostly indigenous led movement in recent weeks as “criminals” and “narco-terrorists,” and portrayed them as led by former Bolivian President Evo Morales.

Though Morales does indeed command influence among some unions and trade groups, particularly in Cochabamba, most of Bolivia’s left abandoned the former leader after MAS splintered.

We have a feature due out this week from a reporter on the ground in La Paz about how much influence Morales really carries. More on that soon. But for now, he makes a convenient scapegoat for a government in danger of being toppled by its own people.

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The Other Big Headlines in LATAM

• In Ecuador, right-wing President Daniel Noboa took advantage of his State of the Union address to promise further extraditions of criminals to the US, and assured voters that his crackdowns on civil society are providing security gains. They are not.

• The US indicted former Cuban President Raúl Castro over his role in the shooting down of a plane in Cuban airspace carrying anti-government exiles more than 30 years ago. The BBC has a piece this week explaining the incident in detail: it didn’t happen quite as DC claims.

• US Senator Bernie Moreno is advocating for the nullification of voting rights for large swathes of Colombia in upcoming elections. In a conversation with the Atlantic Council think tank, Moreno said that “I want to encourage the government, the CNE specifically, to consider voter intimidation as a disqualifying event for some of the ballot results in some parts of the country that are not secure.” Our sister-org Colombia reports has more on the topic.

• The US carried out a military training exercise in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas which included the deployment of Osprey helicopters and military personnel. It was widely viewed as a show of power in a country they attacked in January.

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Hasta pronto, piratas!

Colombia is about to head to the polls for the first round of presidential elections. For months, the race has been viewed as a three-way contest, with two right-wing candidates vying for who would likely face leftist candidate Ivan Cepeda in the second round.

​A month ago, the failure of the right to consolidate behind a single candidate even put Cepeda far enough ahead of his opponents that his campaign began pursuing a strategy to win outright in the first round by achieving more than 50% of the vote.

​But if the last polls before voting on Sunday, May 31, are to be believed, it is increasingly likely the second round will be a showdown between Cepeda and controversial and outspoken ultra-right outsider Abelardo de la Espriella, a man who made his name advocating for one of the most infamous right-wing death squads in Latin America.

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Who is Abelardo de la Espriella?

Abelardo wants you to call him “The Tiger,” a moniker he gave himself as part of his election campaign. He is an outspoken admirer of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, Javier Milei in Argentina, and Donald Trump in the United States.

​He is Italian-Colombian, holding passports in both countries, and is most famous as a high-profile defense attorney. He has defended controversial clients, including former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, narco-traffickers, and Alex Saab, who was extradited this week to the US over money laundering accusations related to his time as a minister in Venezuela.

​He has often publicly dropped misogynistic and homophobic comments, including in formal interviews. He often brushes off criticisms of his behavior as “woke” or claims that critics can’t take a joke.

​He is also a businessman, with a line of clothing, a brand of rum, a coffee distribution company, and a foundation to help impoverished children, though recent reporting by Colombian media suggests those efforts may be more about branding than profits, as few of his businesses actually sell much of anything.

​Before he began to gain momentum as a divisive public figure, De la Espriella was a public advocate for the paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

​He represented the paramilitary group in a personal public relations campaign during their peace negotiations with the government of former president Álvaro Uribe between 2002 and 2005.

The AUC participated in countless human rights violations during the country’s civil war, including the “false positives” scandals, in which thousands of civilians were killed to inflate casualty statistics of rebel fighters.

As part of those efforts, de la Espriella established a foundation to represent the interests of AUC fighters. In addition to attempting to clear their public images, he also advocated against their possible extradition to the United States for crimes committed in Colombia.

The foundation, called FIPAZ, received more than 1.3 billion pesos ($350,000 USD) from the AUC, according to Colombian media.

De la Espriella’s campaign platform has been short on details, but he promises “iron fist” security policies and economic austerity programs designed to bring down Colombia’s debt and attract foreign investment.

Security has become a predominant theme of the campaign as Colombia’s internal conflict continues unabated. This election season has also brought about attacks on campaign workers, sitting senators, and bombings by guerrilla groups in the south of the country.

De la Espriella also, paradoxically, plans to increase funding for Colombia’s military forces. The ultra-right candidate has promised “Total War” on criminal armed groups, and has capitalized on his status as an outsider with promises to go after corruption in the country, which is endemic.

He has stated that he will begin by restructuring Ecopetrol, Colombia’s state-owned oil company. He has promised a “full new house” of board members and directors, hand-picked by himself, of course, as the first step.

His relationship with the media has grown increasingly fraught. In addition to forcing a female journalist in a live interview to look at a picture of his groin (saying, “This is why all the women go wild for me”), he has often attacked journalists who report factually on his checkered past, initiating more than 100 lawsuits against journalists in the country.

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A ‘defense’ lawyer who has often gone after journalists

De la Espriella is a close associate of former president Álvaro Uribe, one of the main promoters of paramilitary groups in the 1990s.

On Uribe’s behalf, De la Espriella tried and failed to take down a popular online series, “Matarife,” which exposed Uribe’s ties to the Medellin Cartel and alleged ties to the AUC.

This lawsuit was part of a campaign that sought to intimidate journalists reporting on Uribe’s controversial past.

According to the Press Freedom Foundation FLIP, De la Espriella “abuses legal tools to intimidate and silence voices who reveal or question any issue that concerns him,” in often futile attempts to protect his clients’ self-proclaimed “good name and honor.”

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Can he win?

Ivan Cepeda is almost certain to win the first round, but Abelardo is looking ever more likely to be his opponent in the run-off.

According to the most recent and final poll of the first round, Cepeda has the support of 44.6% of voters, which is only 0.3 points higher than he polled in late April.

De la Espriella rose more than 10 points since that same April poll to 31.6%, principally due to the collapse of support for his immediate rival on the far-right, Senator Paloma Valencia.

Support for Valencia dropped a staggering 5.8 points to 14%, making an appearance by the far-right senator in the second round unlikely.

Centrists and liberals, many of whom were willing to hold their noses to vote for Paloma over Cepeda, who they view as too progressive, have been increasingly left without options in an extremely polarized race.

If polls are to be believed, De La Espriella is now the likely second-round contestant who will face off against Cepeda. His campaign has aggressively pushed back on journalists in recent weeks, creating increasingly hostile relations with news media over their reporting on Abalardo’s ties to the AUC as well as notorious drug traffickers.

Polling suggests that Paloma would fare better against Cepeda in a second round, counting on support from liberal and centrist parties, some of whom may simply stay home or vote “blank” rather than support de La Espriella.

We don’t feel comfortable making a prediction, as Colombia is anything but predictable. However, many centrist pundits are suggesting that Abalardo is in danger of handing the election to the Colombian left as they try to whip up last-minute support for Paloma.

Abelardo’s critics, however, fear a much darker possibility: a throwback to the most authoritarian right-wing era at the height of the Colombian war, or worse, a Bukele-style expansion of the power of the office as well as security forces.

Colombia’s police and military committed grave human rights abuses during the country’s 53-year civil war, and Abelardo seems to be advocating a return to those same levels of impunity.

A runoff vote is scheduled for June 21 if no candidate secures more than 50% of the valid ballots.

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Hasta pronto, piratas!

The United States is engaged in aggressive military actions throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. US military and intelligence agencies have carried out confirmed strikes in Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, as well as dozens of strikes on alleged “drug boats” in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean near Ecuador, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Nicaragua.

These strikes have killed almost 200 people. No US entity has provided any evidence to support the accusations, and at least some of those murdered have since been proven to be simple fishermen.

​Less hyped by Washington D.C, however, is an alarming increase in both the aggressiveness and frequency of operations carried out by the country’s infamous Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

​Not since the heyday of the Cold War have the spooks who run one of the world’s deadliest intelligence agencies been given such free rein. For many Latin American leaders who lean left, the development is a terrifying throwback to the days of CIA alliances with death squads, narco organizations, and right-wing dictatorships across the region.

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Shades of the heyday of CIA “cowboys”

Since Trump assumed office in 2025, he has pushed for the CIA to be more aggressive in actions against cartels and non-state armed groups, as well as governments that Washington opposes.

The CIA was instrumental in the US military strike on Caracas, Venezuela, on January 3, which resulted in the capture of then-President Nicolas Maduro. According to the US State Department, CIA officials on the ground had assets within the Maduro government and even met in previous days with current “interim president” Delcy Rodriguez.

They also confirmed to sympathetic US right-wing media in the spring that the US would be ramping up both clandestine and “kinetic” operations against organized crime groups across Latin America — further stating that the CIA was already involved in numerous “counter-terrorism” operations that “most Americans will never hear about.”

​US State Department officials confirmed that four operatives from the agency’s elite Ground Branch were killed in a car crash in Mexico on April 16. The agents were directly involved in ongoing anti-narcotics operations in the state of Chihuahua, according to US officials.

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Since those ominous statements, we are beginning to understand at least some of the degree to which the spy agency has been conducting operations, including assassinations, across the region.

​US State Department officials confirmed that CIA officers on the ground were directly involved in the capture of “El Mencho,” leader of the New Generation Jalisco Cartel, in May. Agents from the CIA Ground Branch provided direct logistical, intelligence, and equipment support in the operation that killed more than 50 people, including 25 members of Mexico’s National Guard.

​CNN also reported this week that CIA officers were directly responsible for a sophisticated targeted assassination of a mid-level cartel commander just outside of Mexico City on March 28.

Francisco Beltran, who police referred to as “El Payin,” was killed instantly along with his driver after a bomb planted by the CIA detonated in their car on a busy highway.

At the time, experts speculated that the device used to kill the two men was too advanced to have been used by rival criminal gangs, an observation that led to speculation that US intelligence may have been involved even before the most recent CNN story emerged.

According to the same CNN report, the Trump administration has been building towards a more expanded and lethal CIA presence in Mexico since the earliest days of Trump’s second term.

Current CIA Director John Ratcliffe has been laser-focused on expanding the agency’s role in counter-cartel missions and related covert operations since he was tapped for the job, according to US government sources that spoke with CNN.

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CIA as Diplomats, Diplomats as CIA

The US is increasingly using top spooks to conduct diplomatic actions, and has appointed former high-level CIA officers to key ambassador positions. State Department statements confirming CIA operations in multiple countries are also not unintentional leaks. They are sending intentional messages to those they view as enemies — at least in the regions where doing so is politically expedient.

Ronald Johnson, the US ambassador to Mexico, had a long career at the CIA before his current appointment. Immediately before Mexico, he protected Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele from investigations in both the US and El Salvador.

Ratcliffe was among the first high-ranking US officials to meet with Delcy Rodriguez in Venezuela after she was installed by the United States as “interim president.”

Ratcliffe also recently led a high-profile diplomatic mission to Cuba, where he met with Cuban officials to discuss “economic and human-rights reforms,” according to a statement by the US State Department.

Presumably, his personal role in the attack on Caracas and the capture of Maduro did not go unnoticed by Cuban officials.

The US is expected to unveil criminal charges against former President Raúl Castro on Wednesday over a 1996 incident in which a plane was shot down in Cuban airspace, piloted by anti-government Cuban exiles.

Criminal charges were similarly announced against then-President Maduro before the US attacked the country in January.

The Trump administration seems to be leaving behind long-standing, if unspoken, rules that the CIA generally operates in the shadows. Instead, the US is using them not only as an open threat but also, often, as the very messenger that delivers those threats.

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Known Unknowns

It is convenient for the US to let narcos in Mexico know the CIA is hunting them. It is also a less-than-subtle threat to any party in Venezuela that opposes US actions that the agency not only took out Maduro, but also controls his successor.

​But as the US carries out kinetic actions in other countries, and where it is less convenient to unveil what type of CIA operations are ongoing, we are unlikely to have any immediate details.

US Southern Command has carried out bombings in conjunction with Ecuador in the Andean country as part of “Operation Total Extermination.” They allegedly also work closely with their Colombian counterparts in cooperation against non-state armed groups in the country.

Ratcliffe told the New York Post in February that leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro has been “increasingly cooperative” since the US removed Maduro from power in January.

It is widely assumed that the CIA is carrying out active operations within Cuba as well. Trump has at various times threatened to overthrow the government in the region as he imposes a draconian blockade on the country, which has left the country almost completely without fuel.

The Trump administration has increasingly blurred the lines between foreign policy regarding rival states, “the War on Terror,” and migration enforcement. As part of efforts to justify US military and intelligence actions across the region, the US has declared more than a dozen criminal groups to be foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs).

The US State Department declared Mexican organizations Sinaloa, Jalisco, and Nueva Familia Michoacána cartels as FTOs shortly after taking office. They did the same with Maduro loyalists late last year.

They have also designated four Ecuadorian gangs as FTOs. All of these designations are clearly an attempt by the administration to provide legal cover for targeted assassinations, bombings, military operations, and providing intelligence to security forces they view as aligned with US interests.

Sheinbaum has denied knowing that CIA operatives were operating within Mexico alongside Mexican security forces, with the exception of the operation that led to the capture of “El Mencho.”

But deniability was almost certainly part of the deal she made with the CIA when she allowed them into the country.

We don’t know the full extent of CIA operations in Latin America, but we can safely assume that Ratcliffe wasn’t lying when he said that many more operations are currently ongoing in the region.

The US hasn’t simply let the CIA off its leash since Trump took office; they want those they perceive as enemies to know they have done so.

Latin America hasn’t seen such overt US violence and covert action in the region since the 1980s. Unfortunately for the residents here, the “cowboy” approach to spycraft is back in style.

It is an oft-quoted cliche that if history doesn’t always repeat, it often rhymes. Perhaps that is what Trump really means by the “Donroe Doctrine.”

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Hasta pronto, piratas!

​

I was getting gas. I had a list somewhere in my head—groceries, an email I had not answered. Masked ICE agents arriving in unmarked vehicles to openly conduct racial profiling in a mass sweep in my community was not on my mind as a possibility for a Tuesday morning. I was on that kind of specific American autopilot that comes from years of learning how to inhabit the ordinary rhythms of a country that has never been entirely too sure what to do with you. The pump clicked on as I looked at my phone. I was not thinking about the State. I was thinking about whether I needed to buy more coffee. The ICE vans pulled in before I finished the first gallon.

There were several vehicles, and they moved in coordination. I blame myself now for not immediately registering what was happening. Their vehicles had tinted windows, no license plates or agency markings. The men wore masks. I looked for a badge the way you look for a light switch in a dark room, automatically, because you have been told your whole life that America doesn’t use secret police. But these men were anonymous.

The absence opened something cold in my chest.

The body knows before the mind does. That is something nobody told me when I left Venezuela, but it is one of the truest things I have learned in the years since. My hands had gone cold. My body already understood what my mind was still catching up on. It had seen this before in another country under another government: the same unmarked vehicles, the same masked men.

I came to the United States from Venezuela in 2014 because I had run out of country. This is not rhetorical flourish—it is a literal description of my circumstances. Venezuela under Maduro had made the particular calculation that authoritarian states make when they decide that dissent is more dangerous than depopulation. The consequences of that calculation filtered through every layer of daily life until the life I had built there became something I could no longer safely inhabit.

I knew what masked men in unmarked vehicles meant long before I set foot on American soil.

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What I had not fully reckoned with, in the years between leaving Venezuela and standing at that fuel pump, was the extent to which I had organized my sense of safety around the assumption that those signs meant something here. That the American State, whatever its contradictions, operated according to different rules than the one I had fled.

I have written about that assumption academically. I have participated in conferences that explore those ideas, assigned texts that criticize those assuptions by unmasking American exceptionalism as an ideology. And still, underneath all of that, I had believed a little that the United States truly was different than Venezuela — freer somehow, flawed, but striving towards justice.

I had let myself believe it, because the alternative—that I had exchanged one form of exposure to authoritarianism for another was not a belief I could afford to fully embrace and still get up in the morning.

The vans disabused me of that notion in the time it took them to cross the parking lot.

Michael Foucault described modern power as “panoptic”, meaning, the observed internalize surveillance because they can never be certain when the watcher is present. They become active, if unwilling, participants in the surveillance state without realizing it.

ICE agents at this Florida gas station were a physical inversion of that idea: these men were deliberately invisible, anonymous, without identity, while everyone around them stood completely exposed.

In Venezuela I had learned that this asymmetry—the State that sees everything and shows nothing—is the preferred operating condition. Terror is more terrifying when it is dispensed anonymously.

The State can do what the named, faced, accountable individual could not, because there is no self to be held to account afterward, no person at the end of the complaint, nothing to find when you go looking.

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They began taking people without asking for documents. There is no need for papers when papers were never the point. The goal is the visible, public, unanswerable assertion of the state’s authority to take whoever it decides, to make that taking seem inevitable, and to do it in front of witnesses precisely because the witnesses are also the target audience of their performance.

The people being loaded into those vans had their right to an ordinary Tuesday revoked in the time it took a door to swing open. The men doing it had no names. There would be no record, and the afternoon would continue around it as if they had never existed.

What I think of most are the sexual comments the agents made about the women. I want to be plain about this because the instinct, when you write about sexual harassment in the context of something as large as what else was happening, is to treat it as secondary or an ugly accompaniment to the main event. It was not secondary. It was the same event.

They said what they said at full volume, in open air. Some of the girls looked young—too young—and the agents looked at them as if they did not look younger than fifteen. No body, I remembered my professor’s words from two weeks prior, in the operational space is outside of the enforcer’s authority.

And then one of them came to me.

He was larger than me and he put his hands on me and I felt the old cold move through my body. I was standing at a gas pump in the United States and I was also, in some cellular sense, somewhere else, some prior moment when the geometry had been similar and the outcome had been uncertain.

I can’t help but find myself giggling when I remember his reaction to my calm demeanor. How could this man understand his intimidation had no effect on me? I had seen men like him since the time I could walk.

He looked at my face and told me I had Arab looking eyebrows. The temptation at this point was to receive the racial profile as an error, embarrassing, perhaps, correctable with better training. But that his reading was wrong: I am Venezuelan and not Arab, that his threat assessment was built entirely from his own racial imagination projected onto my brow.

It is neither incidental nor accidental that he thinks this way Post-9/11 America collapsed distinctions between Arab, South Asian, Latino, and Muslim bodies into a single undifferentiated category of suspicion, and my Venezuelan face fell inside that category. The officer didn’t need me to be Arab any more than he needed to verify anyone’s papers. He needed me to look close enough to “dangerous”, and I did. That was the entirety of his legal reasoning.

He let me go because the van was full. He said it, then confirmed it with another agent standing beside him. Then he told me he would get me next time and walked away.

I stood at the pump and did not move for a very long time until I could no longer hear the screams of the taken. They shouted names and others a series of numbers, what I now recognize based on the amount, to be Social Security numbers and phone numbers. This haunts me still.

The “next time”, however, landed in a body that had already been living inside a next time for years, that had left Venezuela to escape the specific psychological condition of never knowing when the State would arrive again.

I had believed, imperfectly and necessarily, that I had left this state of psychological terror behind. Giorgio Agamben, an Italian philosopher whose work examines how States produce categories of people stripped of legal protection, described this figure as “bare life”: the figure who can be taken or released without it registering as a legal event. A Venezuelan woman at an American fuel pump,

The condition of her “freedom” is subject to revision whenever logistics change.

I wasn’t taken not due to any sense of rights or justice. It was arbitrary. I was not taken because the van ran out of room. Freedom was not a legal universal condition but a logistical accident.

There is no framework I can place around that which makes it feel like safety. There is no document, no status, no level of education or professional standing that converts it into safety. The van was full. That is the sentence at the bottom of all the other sentences.

I don’t know if he will remember my face or if I was already generic to him by the time he turned away. Another set of eyebrows close enough to dangerous, not worth the space in the van. The van was full, so I drove home, to a country I had come to think of as a refuge and that had just shown me, with thoroughness, what it thought of that arrangement.

The van was full, so I drove home.

I am writing this so that somewhere, in whatever record exists of what this country is doing in parking lots on ordinary Tuesdays, this is in it. It is ironic that this mild dissent must be anonymous as well upon the advice of my immigration lawyer.

ICE didn’t just threaten my liberty that day without reason. In a sense, they have also taken my name from me. But in a country where people have been deported for essays in University newspapers, just like in Venezuela, terror is the point.

Our very voices are taken.

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Hasta pronto, piratas!

Colombia’s oldest guerrilla organization, the ELN, said Tuesday that it had sentenced two captured prosecution investigators to “revolutionary prison” sentences of up to six years.

In a video, a spokesperson of the ELN’s Eastern War Front said that Jesus Antonio Pacheco and Rodrigo Antonio Lopez were spared capital punishment after being found guilty of spying and fabricating evidence against civilians.

The two officials are forensic investigators who work for Technical Investigations Unit (CTI) were kidnapped by ELN guerrillas in May last year while investigating a homicide in Arauca, one of the ELN’s strongholds in northeast Colombia.

Usually, ELN frees state employees quickly, or tried to trade them for captured guerrilla fighters.

ELN said the two men were convicted for “belonging to a state agency dedicated to committing crimes against humanity, for carrying out espionage operations against the ELN by involving civilians and minors, and for staging judicial fabrications or “false positives” against the civilian population.”

Pacheca and Lopez were sentenced to 60 and 55 months in prison respectively.

These sentenced were reduced by 60% because of the CTI investigators’ cooperation with the guerrillas’ investigations.

The ELN often hold trials in the areas it controls to settle disputes, or punish perceived wrongdoing — in many ways serving as the de facto state in the regions they control.

According to Caracol Radio, the ELN proposed to swap its captives for imprisoned guerrillas.

Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez rejected the ELN’s allegations against the officials, and stressed that the guerrilla organization “is no judicial authority” but a “drug trafficking cartel.”

The ELN’s decision to try captives for alleged crimes instead of securing their release to humanitarian organizations “is a threat against the Colombian people,” added Sanchez.

The minister called on international humanitarian organizations and the Catholic Church to mediate the release of the CTI officials as well as two police officers who have been held by the guerrilla group.

The ELN announcement came after the guerrillas sent out a press release in which they suggested that they would maintain a suspension of peace talks until after President Gustavo Petro leaves office in August.

Petro embarked on peace talks with the guerrilla group, but these negotiations collapsed.

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With the first round of Colombian presidential elections just a few weeks away, leftist candidate Ivan Cepeda — hand-picked successor to current President Gustavo Petro — is miles ahead of his competition.

In the most recent available poll, he has moved within striking distance of winning outright in the first round on May 31.

An Invamer poll last week posted his support among likely voters at 44.3%, and he is trending upwards. Cepeda’s support has risen alongside Petro’s approval rating in recent months and has consolidated voters behind him, if recent polling is accurate.

In February, Cepede was polling at 37.1% — enough to win the first round over his two right-wing opponents, but not high enough to beat both if their votes were consolidated in a second round.

That has changed, even as conflict and attacks by armed groups have killed more than two dozen in recent weeks as elections get into full swing.

Currently in second place is far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella, at 21.5%, followed by ultra-right-wing Senator Paloma Valencia at 19.8%.

Valencia has been endorsed by ultra-right-wing icon, former president, and convicted criminal, Álvaro Uribe, who leads the “Uribista” movement in the country.

Abelardo, who comes from a right-wing political dynasty in Colombia, has referred to current President Petro as “evil.” He is presenting an economic plan modelled on austerity in the vein of Argentina’s Javier Milei, whom he publicly admires.

He is also the former lawyer of Alex Saab, the Colombian businessman whom the US claims served as the “frontman” for former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Valencia carries strong support in Antioquia, the traditional seat of power for “Uribismo,” and is running on a campaign criticizing Petro over security issues and the rising power of criminal armed groups in the country.

She often also claims that Cepeda will bring about an autocratic government in the vein of former President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, as well as destroy the economy.

They are the same claims Uribista candidates made about Petro in both elections he participated in. Neither prediction came true.

Petro’s rising popularity in recent months has been viewed by some experts outside of the country as something of a contradiction. His core political project, “Total Peace”, which involved negotiating directly with armed groups in return for their eventual disarmament, has suffered serious setbacks.

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Some of those failures were self-inflicted by an administration that has at times taken a chaotic approach to peacebuilding, such as when shortly after taking office, Petro announced a unilateral ceasefire agreement with the country’s five largest armed groups.

All but one of those agreements, which were granted by the government without enforcement protocols or asking anything in return, have since collapsed. Violence has also steadily risen in rural areas as criminal groups have consolidated territory — a dynamic that began during the presidency of his predecessor, Ivan Duque.

His economic agenda of broad reform in one of the most unequal countries in the world was broadly blocked by opposition lawmakers in Congress, including a signature health reform bill.

However, despite rising external debt, Colombia’s economy is growing, and the peso is strengthening. Petro did manage a series of raises to the minimum wage in four years that have greatly outpaced inflation — an almost 30% increase total.

Perhaps most importantly, however, the right wing has offered no new ideas to poor or rural voters in the country, two areas where Cepeda draws strong support.

Instead, they still speak of “Castro-Chavismo” and “the evils of socialism,” as they have for decades, despite the fact that their main boogieman in past elections, Maduro, has been captured by the United States, and his replacement has made it clear she favors market-friendly US policies in the country.

Both right-wing candidates have promised “Total War” against armed groups in the country. It is the same dynamic the right has offered for decades, and which failed to stem their growth.

Valencia and Abelardo enjoy support in urban centers where Bogota has focused on investment in recent decades, while ignoring more rural communities — the same communities threatened by ongoing low-intensity conflict.

It may be a sign that voters most affected by conflict are not swayed by their “iron fist” strategies to combat violence. Those communities have seen those tactics before. And they have seen them fail.

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Petro has called recent attacks on civilians by the FARC dissident group EMC “terrorism,” claiming it is “being carried out to undermine elections.”

Petro has taken much more aggressive measures against EMC in particular over the last two years, even at times using the phrase “Total War” himself, as the group has repeatedly rebuffed negotiations.

But the overall polling numbers, though they make for interesting analysis, don’t tell the whole story. Even in Medellin, the capital of Uribista political movements, marches carried out by the left are growing in size.

Many of the working-poor neighborhoods in the hills around the city have social organizations and civic programs where Cepeda’s party draws strong support.

During a recent PWS reporting trip to Aranjuez, a working-class barrio in Medellin, we spoke with 10 women who have been organizing food drives, mutual aid, English-language instruction, and community organizing for nearly two decades.

During the interview, every one of them expressed strong support for Cepeda, often pointing out that wealthy Uribista candidates have never made even token gestures to address the problems their communities face.

It’s an oft-used cliche that a month is an eternity in politics. Much could change before May 31. But for these women, a month is merely the blink of an eye.

They gave the right 30 years to address the issues they care about. And Uribismo never did.

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Hasta pronto, piratas!

The organization that has kidnapped tens of thousands of people, killed scores, lied publicly more times than we can count, and terrorized millions across the world, wants you to refer to them as “NICE.”

Trump apparently floated the renaming last week, but in the meantime, official Department of Homeland Security accounts have embraced the rebranding in a flurry of public statements and social media posts.

It’s the latest PR pivot to put a less fascist face on controversial policies that inspired uprisings across the nation after Minneapolis residents stymied a DHS crackdown in the city last year during protests in which DHS agents shot three people to death, including two US citizens.

The popular rebellion was too much even for some Trump allies who support his draconian migration policies, and led to the forced resignation of then-chief Gregory Bovino as acting head of operations for the department.

Secretary Markwayne Mullin. who has since taken over the masked US police force, pledged during his March confirmation hearing to lower the DHS’s public profile, stating that his goal was for the agency to no longer be “in the lead story every day” as it recalibrates its enforcement approach.

But though splashy public round-ups have largely ceased, ICE, which is under DHS control, has largely carried on business as usual — averaging 1,286 removals a day in March. Nearly 70,000 people are currently in DHS custody. The vast majority have no criminal record.

Crackdowns on migrants more broadly have continued, including on DACA recipients. More than 6,000 children have also been detained by DHS since Trump assumed office.

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The agency has also continued stepping up its mass surveillance on US citizens and non-citizens alike.

The administration is reacting to recent polling, in which only 35% of people in the US say they support Trump’s migration policy, compared with more than 60% who “disapprove” or “strongly disapprove.”

The abysmal polling has worried many of Trump’s Republican allies as midterm elections approach. They have called for a softer public tone, worried that all the murder, racism, and kidnappings might affect their re-election chances among Latinos.

The PR charge, however, remains just that. Despite no longer conducting highly-publicized random sweeps in which they invite sympathetic journalists, as DHS did for all of 2025, Border Patrol and ICE operations have quietly continued without the fanfare.

The administration has also quietly continued tightening laws against migrants who entered the country “legally”, stacked migration courts with sympathetic judges, and stepped up other strategies for ICE to detain suspected migrants.

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As the DHS “shutdown” fails to shut down anything, Trump allies move to fund the agency for 10 more years

As we have previously reported, DHS core operations are largely unaffected by a Democratic “shutdown” that has been ongoing for weeks (TSA being the one occasional exception.) Now Republicans are using an archaic funding procedure to push a measure that would fully fund the agency for ten years through both US legislative chambers.

The bill would authorize $70 billion dollars in funding for DHS as part of reconciliation processes in a simple up-down vote that could pass with a simple majority.

The Senate has already approved the bill. It now moves to the House, where Republicans hold a razor-thin majority.

The procedure is the latest in moves in which Republicans have simply side-stepped tepid Democratic efforts to offer token opposition to Trump’s migration policies.

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The Round-Up

• The ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good after calling her a “dyke bitch” — Jonathan Ross —has been quietly relocated to a different state and allowed to resume work with DHS, according to internal documents from the organization.

• DHS is increasingly sending migrants, including asylum seekers who entered the US formally, to third countries with which they have no relationship, including dozens of Colombians and Ecuadorians who have been deported to the Congo with no way to return home.

• DHS is increasingly forcing local police to work with ICE. Louisiana now makes it a crime for police to refuse ICE cooperation. Florida created a board to punish officials who don’t comply with ICE. Texas forced nearly all sheriffs to become immigration enforcers. And the crackdown on resisting ICE is spreading.

• California’s mask law, which lawmakers knew would not affect ICE using masks, has predictably been struck down by courts. The majority of Democratic lawmakers continue to engage in theatrics and symbolic actions rather than active opposition against DHS.

• US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were told verbally by superiors weeks ago to stop entering homes without judicial warrants, marking a shift away from some of the agency’s most aggressive enforcement tactics, according to a report from Bloomberg.

• Florida may ban undocumented students from public colleges, according to reporting from the Miami Herald.

• If you want to learn about all the different field agents that DHS employs, from ICE, to CPB, to HSI, the Guardian has a great visual breakdown that also describes DHS command structure.

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Hasta pronto, piratas!

Political news website La Silla Vacia has been linked to a far-right propaganda campaign that has been paid for by some of Colombia’s most reactionary corporations.

The campaign, “Project Jupiter,” has been organizing “democracy workshops” for tens of thousands of workers and has been publishing content online to generate “fear / indignation / uncertainty” among voters ahead of the presidential vote.

Among Project Jupiter’s “digital agencies” is La Silla Vacia, according to a flyer that was made public by Raya magazine and the investigative journalism program of public television network RTVC.

In an audio, the director of the propaganda campaign, former Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez, said that “we have digital agencies—namely [libertarian think tank] Libertank and La Silla Vacia—which are enabling us to scale up at an incredible rate.”

Project Jupiter was able to reach 17 million people in all of Colombia’s 32 provinces because of the collaboration of the digital platforms, which also included several public relations firms, Bermudez said.

When asked about the collaboration with La Silla Vacia, the former foreign minister told Raya that Project Jupiter was allowed to publish their content on platforms owned by the political news website.

In a response, La Silla Vacia denied being a part of the propaganda efforts that seek to promote libertarian ideals and dissuade people from voting for the leftist frontrunner in the elections, Ivan Cepeda, and his far-right opponent Abelardo de la Espriella.

According to the website, “these so-called journalistic exposés are part of a smear campaign.”

The scandal broke days after the campaign of far-right candidate Paloma Valencia published images of a meeting between campaign managers and investor of Banco Santander, including La Silla Vacia founder Juanita Leon.

In response to those images, Leon said that she accidentally ended up at the campaign meeting.

La Silla Vacia had already come under fire after Cepeda accused them of being part of an opposition campaign to smear him, a claim also denied by Leon and her influential website.

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Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa this week hiked tariffs on Colombian imports to 100%. It is the latest escalation in an ongoing and bitter trade war with neighbor Colombia.

But as gangs fueled by cocaine from Colombia spread inland into previously safe areas of Ecuador, and homicides shatter already high records, many see the border dispute as less about retaliation over a perceived lack of security efforts by Colombia and more about Noboa deflecting from his failing “iron fist” policies.

Noboa’s aggressive policies include military raids, U.S.-backed bombings, crackdowns on civil society, and labelling cartels as terrorist organizations. Naboa has loudly and publicly vowed to crush organized crime. Instead, reports show violence spreading into Ecuador’s interior, including into areas once spared from the coastal bloodshed, far from infamous port-cities like Guayaquil.

In recent years, cocaine from Colombia and Peru —the world’s top producers— has flooded across Ecuador’s borders and towards its port, which has become a key hub in international smuggling. The dynamic caused a surge in criminality in Ecuador, which was once among the safest countries in the region, but now holds one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America.

Noboa blames the rise in violence on Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro for “lax borders” that dump “narco-terrorists” on Ecuador.

Noboa claims Petro has “handed the border over to the mafia.”

In a recent interview with Semana, an ultra-right-wing tabloid in Colombia, Noboa claimed that Petro maintains communication with criminal leaders in Ecuador.

Noboa accused Petro of indirect connections with accused Ecuadorian narco Adolfo Macías, alias “Fito.” Naboa claims that Petro communicates with members of the Ecuadorian opposition, who in turn pass on those communications to Fico.

He offered no proof for his accusations.

Petro’s leftist party, Pacto Histórico, has in turn accused Noboa of making false claims in an attempt to interfere in Colombian presidential elections, which begin next month.

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In recent months, Naboa has ratcheted up more than just rhetoric. He is conducting military actions in the borderlands in cooperation with US military forces as part of “Operation Total Extermination,” that have at times veered into Colombian territory.

Petro, for his part, however, is doing little to calm the situation. Last week, the Colombian president labeled the former vice-president Jorge Glas, who is currently jailed by Ecuador, a “political prisoner,” and demanded his release.

Glas is a close ally of former President Rafael Correa, who fled the country after being formally charged with corruption. Glas is currently serving out a jail sentence after a corruption conviction of his own.

The comments sparked Naboa’s latest tariff increase last week.

President Petro promptly responded in comments, saying that the Colombian government will respond according to the “principles of reciprocity” and announced similar Colombian tariffs on Ecuadorian goods.

Many experts, however, believe Naboa is trying to reframe Ecuador’s security challenges in external terms, pointing to actors beyond his borders even as he strengthens ties with Washington, including his recent alignment with President Trump’s “Shield of the Americas” initiative.

Sebastián Hurtado, founder and president of Profitas, a leading political risk consultancy based in Quito, calls Noboa’s rhetoric a gamble. Noboa is “weaponizing trade and tying it to security policy,” Hurtado told PWS. Noboa “argues that Colombian inaction was bleeding Ecuador dry, forcing Quito to bear the financial burden of a war against organized crime that originates next door.”

Noboa has gone all in on promises to restore security, but as violence keeps rising in Ecuador, his efforts are beginning to look increasingly shaky.

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Petro’s focus on negotiating and communicating with armed groups in return for their eventual disarmament presents Noboa with a useful foil for his own more draconian security policies. Naboa has called Colombia’s “Total Peace” strategy “soft,” claiming it has allowed criminal networks and cocaine flows to expand across the region.

Hurtado says that both Noboa and Petro are leveraging the border crisis to shift blame and stir nationalist support as their domestic positions weaken. Noboa isn’t only on his back heels over setbacks on security, but is also fresh off a failed campaign over a voter referendum on allowing US military bases in the country and permanent increased police powers.

Noboa also faces mounting criticism of human and civil rights violations by military and police as part of his crackdowns — and a recent conviction of 11 Ecuadorian soldiers for kidnapping and murdering a group of Afro-Ecuadorian children last year in a case that outraged the country.

Petro, meanwhile, is carrying his party towards elections amidst mounting governance challenges, including rising conflict in rural regions of Colombia.

It’s not the first time Noboa has tried to shift blame for Ecuador’s security woes to foreign entities. In March, Noboa claimed that Hamas and Hezbollah have ties to Ecuadorian gangs and maintain an active presence in the country. He has also repeatedly blamed “Tren de Aragua” for rises in homicide in the country. There is no evidence for either claim.

As Ecuador’s homicide count climbs past 1,200 this year, a 200% surge since Noboa took office, the effectiveness of his “mano dura” security strategy is being questioned even by his supporters.

Human rights groups have also reported increased allegations of abuses tied to expanded military and police operations — including killings, arbitrary detentions, and forced disappearances.

Meanwhile, the tighter border controls and tariffs along the Ecuador-Colombia frontier have had unintended consequences. Merchant groups say informal and illicit cross-border trade has grown as businesses and criminal networks seek to avoid paying tariffs by crossing the border informally. The increased traffic is presenting opportunities for criminal groups to camouflage their own smuggling of cocaine, cash, and weapons across an already porous border.

Noboa’s tariff escalation is a gambit meant to distract from failing policies at home but deepening tensions with Colombia, which has often cooperated on security issues with Ecuador, risks exacerbating the security crisis. As coordinated actions on trafficking routes and organized crime in the regions cease, both countries are reinforcing the insecurity that sparked the dispute in the first place.

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Ecuadorian-Colombian border dispute continues to escalate: Petro threatens legal action

As elections approach in Colombia, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa is ratcheting up attacks on his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro. Following Ecuador raising tariffs on Colombian imports into the country to 100%, Naboa has now accused Petro of indirect connections to the accused Ecuadorian narco Adolfo Macías, alias “Fito.”

Naboa claims that Petro knows members of the Ecuadorian opposition, who in turn know Fico. He presented no proof for his admittedly somewhat childish accusation.

Petro has denied the claims and threatened to sue Noboa for libel. Under Ecuadorian law, libel is illegal and punishable by up to a 6-month jail term, though it is unlikely prosecutors would go after a sitting president.

Colombia has imposed retaliatory sanctions on Ecuador.

Meanwhile, the trade war between the two countries is increasing clandestine smuggling of goods across the border as transporters and merchants try to avoid the sanctions.

Residents in the borderlands say the increased traffic of irregular crossings is aiding cocaine smugglers who operate in the region. Noboa and Petro have both accused each other of aiding criminality on their respective frontiers.

The story bears watching as Ecuador conducts aggressive military operations that have at times spilled over into Colombia and violated the human rights of Ecuadorians. They have also not resulted in security gains within Ecuador.

US eases sanctions on Venezuela as IMF and World Bank say they will open up credit lines

The United States has eased sanctions on Venezuela’s central bank that the country imposed in 2019. The moves allow for formal financing between the two countries as well as increased US dollar flows for trade.

Now that Venezuela is effectively a US protectorate, The US treasury department issued a licence authorizing commercial links with the Venezuelan state-run central bank and a number of other major state-run Venezuelan financial institutions.

The sanctions had put considerable pressure on Venezuelan international finance, forcing the country to find ways to import US dollars. They also greatly exacerbated the country’s ongoing financial crisis.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced Thursday that they would also resume business with the country in an announcement that was followed shortly by the World Bank as well.

Acting President Delcy Rodriguez, who was installed by the US after former president Nicolas Maduro was captured in an attack on Caracas by US forces, hailed the announcements as “a grand diplomatic victory for Venezuela.”

It would seem that the US has formally decided Venezuela is open for business.

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Peruvian election update: it ain’t over yet

After challenges by candidates, balloting problems in Lima, and the arrest of at least election officials, Peru’s electoral authority has announced that presidential election results will not be finalized until at least mid-May.

With 93 percent of ballots counted, right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori leads with 17 percent, according to officials.

The second-place position, however, has been fraught with dramatic turns as well as dramatic accusations. Left-wing candidate, Roberto Sanchez, on 12 percent, and ultra-conservative Rafael Lopez Aliaga close behind on 11.98 percent — they are separated in the latest count by a mere 13,000 votes.

There are currently 15,000 ballots being challenged.

Aliaga, the ultra-right former mayor of the capital Lima, has been the most vocal critic of the delay. He has alleged fraud without presenting evidence and called for the election to be annulled.

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Vote count in the Peruvian elections is moving at a glacial pace, but that isn’t stopping the sense of drama from heightening.

Two days after the first round of the presidential election, it is still unclear who will face Keiko Fujimori, Alberto Fujimori, in the runoff on June 7.

Fujimori’s daughter is the only one with a guaranteed spot in the runoff. With 89.9% of the votes counted, she leads with 16.8% in a field of 35 candidates.

The race for second place, however, is a nail-biter, and has been held, at various times, by three different candidates.

The ultra-right Rafael López Aliaga (Renovación Popular), with 12.2%, was inched out late last night by leftist Roberto Sánchez. Sanchez has benefited from the late counting of rural votes, and has risen steadily and moved from sixth to third place on

In 6th place early Monday morning, with 11.5%, Sánchez (as of this writing) is now holding a razor-thin 7000 vote lead over López Aliaga, meaning he would face off against Fujimori in the second round.

Aliaga has declared the process, which was marred by delays and failure to deliver ballots to polling centers in the capital, Lima, a “fraud,” and promised a “civil rebellion” if elections are not annulled.

About 50,000 people were unable to vote, forcing the authorities to extend balloting in Lima on Monday.

In a speech to supporters Tuesday night Aliaga accused Sánchez of “stealing” elections, even referring to him as “la bestia,” meaning “the beast” or “devil.”

Sánchez is a leftist candidate, and the protege of former President Pedro Castillo, who is currently jailed after an attempted autogolpe in 2022.

Sánchez, a 57-year-old psychologist, has stated that he is committed to “a new Constitution” and a “plurinational state” that shares power with indigenous peoples.

“There is a tremendous desire for change” among marginalized communities, said the congressman and former minister who served under the government of Pedro Castillo.

The European Union Election Observation Mission, which deployed 150 observers across the country, has stated that there is no evidence of irregularities. “The mission has not received sufficient evidence to suggest that the narrative of fraud has any basis,” said the head of the mission, Annalisa Corrado.

The Peruvian election is so close that the two leading polling firms (Ipsos and Datum) have reported different results in their exit polls. While Ipsos placed Roberto Sánchez in second place, Datum placed Rafael López Aliaga in that position. Datum published these figures on Sunday night, disregarding the National Elections Board’s request not to release poll results.

The European Union Election Observation Mission, which deployed 150 observers across the country, criticized delays in Lima but has stated that there is no evidence of irregularities. “The mission has not received sufficient evidence to suggest that the narrative of fraud has any basis,” the head of the mission, Annalisa Corrado, told Spanish newspaper El Pais.

The Peruvian election is so close that the two leading polling firms (Ipsos and Datum) have reported different results in their exit polls. While Ipsos placed Roberto Sánchez in second place, Datum placed Rafael López Aliaga in that position. Datum published these figures on Sunday night, disregarding the National Elections Board’s request not to release poll results.

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In an era where most news is filtered through editors beholden to corporate boardrooms, billionaire owners, or algorithmic storms, real independent journalism supported by readers could not be more crucial for your understanding of the world.

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After a tumultuous first round, the presidential runoffs in Peru are almost certain to be a race between two far-right candidates. In a quick count, Keiko Fujimori leads the race. Fujimori is the daughter of Peru’s infamous leader during the country’s civil war, who committed grave human rights violations and was later jailed for corruption.

She has promised to bring “security” to Peru, which has seen a rise in homicides over the last decade, as well as crack down on informal migration and deport Venezuelans from the country.

Fujimori holds a 4-point lead in the quick count over ultra-right-wing candidate Rafael Lopez Aliaga, who has adopted the nickname “Porky”, and has been described as “the Bolsonaro of Peru.” Although he ran principally on an anti-crime platform, he has also endorsed sexual abstinence and free-market reforms in the country.

Peru’s more formal slow-count is ongoing.

Peruvians headed to the polls Sunday to elect their 9th president in less than 10 years, and a ballot that contained 35 candidates that included a comedian, a media baron, Fujimori, and Aliaga.

Lima suffered election difficulties when some polling stations did not receive ballots until late in the afternoon. Peru’s elections commission has extended polling at those stations until 6 pm tomorrow evening. Election officials said they estimate 63,000 voters were affected. 

More than 28 million voters were eligible to vote in the Andean country.

The formal results will be published on Monday evening after the polls in Lima close.

This is Fujimori’s fourth presidential campaign.

Aliaga has alleged fraud and intentional tampering in Lima, where he expected strong support. Aliaga is also currently under investigation for money laundering by the Public Ministry regarding alleged political bribes into legitimate business gains.

Narrowly behind Aliaga, in third place before tomorrow’s additional votes, is center liberal candidate Jorge Nieto. Nieto is a former Cultural Minister. He previously ran for President in 2021.

Depending on the results of the slow-count, Monday’s votes could, in theory, affect the second-place position, and thus determine who faces Fujimori in the runoff.

So far, no other candidate has officially questioned the results. 

Peru will head to a second round of presidential elections on June 7th. 

The country has grown increasingly polarized, even as Congress has become more loathed by the population, as well as more powerful as the presidency has weakened. The lawmaker’s body currently has a 3% approval rating.

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