Wola Podcast

WOLA's Director for Mexico and Migrant Rights, Stephanie Brewer, walks us through the late 2020 arrest and release of Mexico's last defense secretary, and what Mexico's handling of the case tells us about the military's power and U.S.-Mexican relations.

Populist and authoritarian leaders have made important gains in Latin America, and the U.S. government has been inconsistent in its dealings with them, and in its support for civil society. WOLA's Geoff Thale and Geoff Ramsey outline a better way forward.

The New York Times recently ran a short film by Sean Mattison about how victims of Argentina's 1976-83 dictatorship creatively called out the ex-military killers and torturers who, benefiting from an amnesty, were living in their midst.

Corruption is "endemic: a system, a network, a web of relations" that underlies many other problems in Latin America. Adriana Beltrán and Moses Ngong discuss how the US and other international actors can support the region's anti-corruption reformers.

The U.S. government is transitioning between two different visions of migration, while human mobility increases throughout Latin America. Adam Isacson and Maureen Meyer discuss what a humane and effective policy would entail, at home and region-wide.

The presidential transition means a shift between two very different visions of US relations with Latin America. A group of WOLA staff takes stock of the Trump years' impact on US credibility in the region, and challenges facing the Biden administration.

Peru's Congress abruptly removed President Martín Viscarra from office this week. It looks like another example of an all-too-familiar recent pattern in Latin America: backlash against anti-corruption reforms. WOLA Senior Fellow Jo-Marie Burt explains.

A discussion with Eduardo “Eddie” Canales, founder and director of the South Texas Human Rights Center in Falfurrias, Texas.   Website: https://southtexashumanrights.org/   Falfurrias is in Brooks County, an area of ranchland 80 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. It is also one of the deadliest places for migrants. Dozens each year get lost while trying to walk around checkpoints that Border Patrol has placed on highways, and end up dying of dehydration and exposure in the south Texas heat.    The South Texas Human Rights Center works to prevent this, putting out dozens of water and aid stations. This involves negotiations and relationship-building with ranchers in an area where most land is private property.   It also involves cooperating with efforts to identify the remains and alert relatives in the deceased migrants’ home countries. Many times a year Eddie, and the technicians with whom he cooperates, help give some closure to parents, spouses, and children who don’t know what happened to a loved one

Even as it has been hit very hard by COVID-19, Peru has just gone through an “express impeachment” and other corruption turmoil, while elections approach. We discuss Peru with IDL Reporteros journalist Gustavo Gorriti and Senior Fellow Jo-Marie Burt.

This month, Adam Isacson, WOLA's Director for Defense Oversight, interviews Francisco Cantú, author of The Line Becomes a River (2018) who spent four years in the Border Patrol. They discuss the often toxic culture of CBP and the current impact the agency has on the United States' approach to migration. Cantú currently lives in Arizona, is a full-time writer and teacher of creative writing, and that a volunteer with the Kino Border Initiative’s migrant accompaniment program, which provides support to asylum seekers detained in the ICE contracted/for-profit (CoreCivic) Eloy Detention Center. Beyond the Wall is a segment of the Latin America Today podcast, and a part of the Washington Office on Latin America's Beyond the Wall advocacy campaign. In the series, we will follow the thread of migration in the Americas beyond traditional barriers like language and borders. We will explore root causes of migration, the state of migrant rights in multiple countries and multiple borders and what we can do to protect hu

The effort to assert democratic civilian control over armed forces is not over, Kristina Mani of Oberlin College reminds us. Latin American civilians, she points out, often use militaries for non-defense purposes, even more so during the COVID-19 crisis.

An exchange with Bogotá-based filmmaker Tom Laffay, whose documentary work with the Siona people of Putumayo, Colombia, supported by the Pulitzer Center, is featured by The New Yorker. Laffay portrays Adiela Mera Paz, who is leading demining efforts to allow displaced Siona to return.

Carlos Quesada, director of the International Institute on Race, Equality, and Human Rights, explains how laws, treaties, and the Inter-American system offer tools for change—or survival—for the LGBT community and other marginalized groups in Latin America.

This month, WOLA premiered an animated video for our Beyond the Wall campaign and recorded a panel discussion. Our panelists discuss the challenges and solutions on a rights-respecting approach to migration. The panel is moderated by Mario Moreno, WOLA’s Vice President for Communications, and includes Geoff Thale, the President of WOLA, Maureen Meyer, WOLA’s Director for Mexico and Migrant Rights, Adam Isacson WOLA’s Director for Defense Oversight, and Adriana Beltran, WOLA’s Director for Citizen Security. Beyond the Wall is a bilingual segment of the Latin America Today podcast, and a part of the Washington Office on Latin America's Beyond the Wall advocacy campaign. In the series, we will follow the thread of migration in the Americas beyond traditional barriers like language and borders. We will explore root causes of migration, the state of migrant rights in multiple countries and multiple borders and what we can do to protect human rights in one of the most pressing crises in our hemisphere. Sign up for

Guatemala is selecting a new slate of Supreme Court justices. The country must not get this wrong, because a nexus of corrupt and powerful people could end up choosing their own judges. We talk to 3 people leading Guatemala·s anti-corruption charge.

Nina Lakhani, a veteran correspondent for the Guardian in Mexico and Central America, discusses her new book about Honduran indigenous activist Berta Cáceres, her 2016 murder and its aftermath, a corrupt system, and a badly misdirected U.S. policy.

WOLA Director for Venezuela Geoff Ramsey and Senior Fellow David Smilde offer a situation report on Venezuela. While the picture is unavoidably grim, they offer a rare nuanced view of Venezuela's search for a political solution and the state of US policy.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) has traveled often to Colombia, the subject of this episode. A leading voice on human rights in Congress, he has a lot to say about recent espionage scandals in Colombia's military, attacks on social leaders, and U.S. policy.

In this episode of Beyond the Wall, Mario Moreno, VP for Communications conducts two interviews regarding the harrowing conditions migrants face in ICE detention centers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first is with Sarah Sanchez and Isabel Ribe, two advocates at the Santa Fe Dreamers Project working with detained migrants. In the second interview, Mario talks with Dr. Tracy Green, a Brandeis University professor and Dana Gold, senior council on the Government Accountability Office, on how a pair of Homeland Security whistleblowers spoke out against conditions of ICE detention facilities during COVID-19 pandemic, and about their mathematical model study revealed that ICE detention facilities face up to 100% infection rate if no action to release detained migrants is taken.   Beyond the Wall is a bilingual segment of the Latin America Today podcast, and a part of the Washington Office on Latin America's Beyond the Wall advocacy campaign. In the series, we will follow the thread of migration in the Americas b

Jonathan Rosen of Holy Family University is the author of, or collaborator on, a large body of recent scholarly work on security policy, drug policy, organized crime, and corruption in the Americas. Here, he lays out what governments keep getting wrong.