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FBI agents arrested Alexis Flores in Honduras nearly 26 years after 5-year-old Iriana DeJesus was raped and killed in North Philadelphia. Flores had been on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for nearly two decades.
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Michael Tanenbaum
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BOSTON, Jan 25 (Reuters) – A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s push to terminate the legal status of more than 8,400 family members of U.S. citizens and green card holders who moved to the United States from seven Latin American countries.
Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a preliminary injunction late on Saturday that prevents the Department of Homeland Security from ending the humanitarian parole granted to thousands of people from Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
They had been allowed to move to the United States under family reunification parole programs that were created or modernized by Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration.
Since Republican President Donald Trump succeeded Biden, his administration has ramped up immigration enforcement with $170 billion budgeted for immigration agencies through September 2029, a historic sum.
Under the family reunification programs, U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, also known as green card holders, could apply to serve as sponsors for family members in those seven countries, letting them live in the U.S. while they waited for their immigrant visas to become available.
The Homeland Security Department said on December 12 it was ending the programs on the grounds that they were inconsistent with Trump’s immigration enforcement priorities and were abused to allow “poorly vetted aliens to circumvent the traditional parole process.”
The termination was originally set to take effect January 14, but Talwani issued a temporary restraining order blocking it for 14 days while she considered whether to issue Saturday’s longer-term injunction.
Talwani said the department, led by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, had provided no support for its fraud concerns or considered whether individuals could feasibly return to their home countries, where many had sold homes or left jobs.
“The Secretary could not provide a reasoned explanation of the agency’s change in policy without acknowledging these interests,” wrote Talwani, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama. “Accordingly, failure to do so was arbitrary and capricious.”
The department did not respond to a request for comment.
The ruling came in a class action lawsuit pursued by immigrant rights advocates challenging the administration’s broader rollback of temporary parole granted to hundreds of thousands of migrants.
Talwani earlier in that case blocked the administration from ending grants of parole to about 430,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, but the Supreme Court lifted her order, which an appeals court later overturned.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston;Editing by Helen Popper)
Copyright 2026 Thomson Reuters.
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Reuters
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A federal judge in California on Wednesday voided the Trump administration’s move to terminate the Temporary Protected Status of roughly 60,000 immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua, calling it a “pre-ordained decision.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the termination of the TPS programs for Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua in June and July, saying the three countries had recovered from the environmental disasters that prompted the U.S. government to grant their nationals temporary legal refuge.
Created by Congress in 1990, the TPS policy allows the U.S. government to give certain foreigners deportation protections and work permits, temporarily, if their native countries are facing armed conflict, an environmental disaster or another emergency that makes their return unsafe.
In late July, U.S. District Court Judge Trina Thompson delayed the termination of the TPS programs for Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua, issuing a preliminary finding that the Trump administration failed to consider lingering problems in three nations and that the decision to terminate the policies was motivated by racial animus, or racial hostility. That ruling was paused in August by an appeals court, allowing the Trump administration to end the programs.
But Thompson issued a summary judgment on Wednesday, finding that the effort to revoke the legal status of tens of thousands of Hondurans, Nepalis and Nicaraguans was unlawful. She said Noem’s move “was preordained and pretextual rather than based on an objective review of the country conditions as required by the TPS statute and the (Administrative Procedures Act).”
“The record specifically reflects that, before taking office, the Secretary made a pre-ordained decision to end TPS and influenced the conditions review process to facilitate TPS terminations for Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal,” Thompson wrote in her order.
The TPS designations for Honduras and Nicaragua were first created in the late 1990s, after the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch, which killed thousands in Central America. Many of those previously enrolled in those programs arrived in the U.S. more than two decades ago. The TPS policy for Nepal was established in 2015, following a deadly earthquake in the small Asian nation.
The Trump administration has mounted an aggressive effort to dismantle most TPS programs, arguing the policy attracts illegal immigration and that it has been abused by Democratic administrations and extended for far too long. It has also moved to terminate TPS protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela.
In a statement, Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the judge’s ruling “another lawless and activist order from the federal judiciary who continues to usurp the President’s constitutional authority.”
“Under the previous administration Temporary Protected Status was abused to allow violent terrorists, criminals, and national security threats into our nation,” McLaughlin said. “TPS was never designed to be permanent, yet previous administrations have used it as a de facto amnesty program for decades. Given the improved situation in each of these countries, now is the right time to conclude what was always intended to be a temporary designation.”
Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy, said Wednesday’s ruling should allow TPS holders from Honduras, Nicaragua and Nepal to work in the U.S. legally and prevent federal immigration officials from detaining and deporting them.
“The court’s decision today restores TPS protections for thousands of long-term law-abiding TPS-holding residents from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua,” Arulanantham said.
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Trump-backed candidate Nasry Asfura won Honduras’ presidential election, the country’s electoral authorities said Wednesday afternoon, ending a weeks-long count.
The election result has continued a swing to the right in parts of Latin America, just a week after Chile chose the far-right politician José Antonio Kast as its next president.
Asfura, of the conservative National Party, received 40.27% of the vote in the Nov. 30, edging out four-time candidate Salvador Nasralla of the conservative Liberal Party, who finished with 39.39% of the vote.
Asfura won in his second bid for the presidency, after he and Nasralla were neck-and-neck during a long vote count that fueled international concern over the Central American nation’s fragile electoral system.
Moises Castillo / AP
On Tuesday night, a number of electoral officials and candidates were already fighting and contesting the results of the election. Meanwhile, followers in Asfura’s campaign headquarters erupted into cheers.
“Honduras: I am prepared to govern,” wrote Asfura, the former mayor of Honduras’ capital Tegucigalpa, in a post on X shortly after the results were released. “I will not let you down.”
The results were a rebuke of the current leftist leader and her governing democratic socialist Liberty and Re-foundation Party, known as LIBRE, whose candidate finished in a distant third place with 19.19% of the vote.
Asfura ran as a pragmatic politician, pointing to his popular infrastructure projects in the capital. President Trump endorsed the 67-year-old conservative just days before the vote, saying he was the only Honduran candidate the U.S. administration would work with.
“If he doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad, because a wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results to a country, no matter which country it is,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Late last month, Mr. Trump also pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez — a National Party member — on drug trafficking and weapons charges, allowing him to leave a U.S. federal prison. The U.S. president claimed Hernandez was “treated very harshly and unfairly,” but his decision drew criticism from some members of both parties.
Nasralla has alleged that the election was fraudulent and called for a recount of all the votes just hours before the official results were announced.
On Tuesday night, he addressed Mr. Trump in a post on X, writing: “Mr. President, your endorsed candidate in Honduras is complicit in silencing the votes of our citizens. If he is truly worthy of your backing, if his hands are clean, if he has nothing to fear, then why doesn’t he allow for every vote to be counted?”
He and others opponents of Asfura have maintained that Mr. Trump’s last-minute endorsement was an act of electoral interference that ultimately swung the results of the vote.
The unexpectedly tumultuous election was also marred by a sluggish vote count, which fueled even more accusations.
The Central American nation was stuck in limbo for more than three weeks as vote-counting by electoral authorities lagged, and at one point was paralyzed after a special count of final vote tallies was called, fueling warnings by international leaders.
Ahead of the announcement, Organization of American States Secretary General Albert Rambin on Monday made an “urgent call” to Honduran authorities to wrap up a special count of the final votes before a deadline of Dec. 30. The Trump administration warned that any attempts to obstruct or delay the electoral count would be met with “consequences.”
For the incumbent, progressive President Xiomara Castro, the election marked a political reckoning. She was elected in 2021 on a promise to reduce violence and root out corruption.
She was among a group of progressive leaders in Latin American who were elected on a hopeful message of change around five years ago, but are now being cast out after failing to deliver on their vision. Castro said last week that she would accept the results of the elections even after she claimed that Mr. Trump’s actions in the election amounted to an “electoral coup.”
But Eric Olson, an independent international observer during the Honduran election with the Seattle International Foundation, and other observers said that the rejection of Castro and her party was so definitive that they had little room to contest the results.
“Very few people, even within LIBRE, believe they won the election. What they will say is there’s been fraud, that there has been intervention by Donald Trump, that we we should tear up the elections and vote again,” Olson said. “But they’re not saying ‘we won the elections.’ It’s pretty clear they did not.”
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Planned pardon of Hernández, convicted for cocaine trafficking, comes before the country’s election.
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José de Córdoba
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President Trump said Friday that he will be pardoning former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who in 2024 was convicted in New York for drug trafficking and weapons charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison.
The president explained his decision on social media by posting that “according to many people that I greatly respect,” Hernandez was “treated very harshly and unfairly.”
In March of last year, Hernandez was convicted in U.S. court of conspiring to import cocaine into the U.S. He had served two terms as the leader of the Central American nation of roughly 10 million people.
Elmer Martinez / AP
The post was part of a broader message by Mr. Trump backing Tito Asfura for Honduras’ presidency, with Mr. Trump saying the U.S. would be supportive of the country if he wins. But if Asfura loses the election this Sunday, Trump posted that “the United States will not be throwing good money after bad, because a wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results to a country, no matter which country it is.”
Outgoing Honduran President Xiomara Castro has leaned into a leftist stance, but she has kept a pragmatic and even cooperative attitude in dealing with the U.S. administration and she has received visits from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and U.S. Army Gen. Laura Richardson, when she was the commander of U.S. Southern Command. The president has even backed off his threats to end Honduras’ extradition treaty and military cooperation with the U.S.
Under Castro, Honduras has also received its citizens deported from the U.S. and acted as a bridge for deported Venezuelans who were then picked up by Venezuela in Honduras.
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After being deported from Minnesota last week, a young mother says she’s back in Honduras without her 8-month-old child.
Kimberlyn Yaritza Menjivar Aguilar, 22, lived in St. Cloud with her partner. They moved to South Dakota shortly before having a child in March.
In a Zoom conversation translated from Spanish to English from her parents’ house in Honduras, Menjivar Aguilar told WCCO about the moment she was detained by federal agents at a September fingerprinting appointment for an approved work permit.
“‘Is this your baby?’ I said yes. And soon after they asked if I was breastfeeding. I said no,” said Menjivar Aguilar through a translator. “They arrested me in handcuffs behind my back.”
Kimberlyn Yaritza Menjivar Aguilar
Kelly Clark is Menjivar Aguilar’s immigration lawyer.
“She signed something that they told her was, ‘If you are removed you can take your baby with you,’ and she signed that document, but at the end she was removed without her baby,” Clark said.
Menjivar Aguilar explains her two-week journey to the U.S. when she was 17, crossing the Rio Grande with her younger brother, all to escape a gang who was trying to recruit them, and to be with their dad in the U.S. He’s since been deported, too.
The assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released this statement: “On September 29, ICE arrested Kimberlyn Yaritza Menjivar Aguilar, an illegal alien from Honduras. She illegally entered the U.S. on April 13, 2021, near Eagle Pass, Texas, and was RELEASED into this country by the Biden administration. She received full due process and was ordered removed by an immigration judge on October 12, 2022. This administration is not going to ignore the rule of law.”
Kimberlyn Yaritza Menjivar Aguilar 
Her lawyer confirms she had the outstanding order of removal from 2022 after missing a court date, which Menjivar Aquilar says she didn’t know about as her father handled her documents and mail.
“After that removal order happened, she was given deferred action, which is literally a ‘we’re not going to deport you,’” Clark said. “It is discretionary. It can be revoked, but it wasn’t revoked”
“All I want is to be with my family, my baby and my partner,” Menjivar Aguilar said.
When Menjivar Aguilar was detained in September, she was approved for a special immigrant juvenile visa. Her attorney is now working with the family to see if they can get her and her baby back together.
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Frankie McLister
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After being deported from Minnesota last week, a young mother says she’s back in Honduras without her 8-month-old child.
Kimberlyn Yaritza Menjiver Aguilar, 22, lived in St. Cloud with her partner. They moved to South Dakota shortly before having a child in March.
In a Zoom conversation translated from Spanish to English from her parents’ house in Honduras, Menjivar Aguilar told WCCO about the moment she was detained by federal agents at a September fingerprinting appointment for an approved work permit.
“‘Is this your baby?’ I said yes. And soon after they asked if I was breastfeeding. I said no,” said Menjivar Aguilar through a translator. “They arrested me in handcuffs behind my back.”
Kimberlyn Yaritza Menjiver Aguilar
Kelly Clark is Menjivar Aguilar’s immigration lawyer.
“She signed something that they told her was, ‘If you are removed you can take your baby with you,’ and she signed that document, but at the end she was removed without her baby,” Clark said.
Menjivar Aguilar explains her two-week journey to the U.S. when she was 17, crossing the Rio Grande with her younger brother, all to escape a gang who was trying to recruit them, and to be with their dad in the U.S. He’s since been deported, too.
The assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released this statement: “On September 29, ICE arrested Kimberlyn Yaritza Menjivar Aguilar, an illegal alien from Honduras. She illegally entered the U.S. on April 13, 2021, near Eagle Pass, Texas, and was RELEASED into this country by the Biden administration. She received full due process and was ordered removed by an immigration judge on October 12, 2022. This administration is not going to ignore the rule of law.”
Kimberlyn Yaritza Menjiver Aguilar
Her lawyer confirms she had the outstanding order of removal from 2022 after missing a court date, which Menjivar Aquilar says she didn’t know about as her father handled her documents and mail.
“After that removal order happened, she was given deferred action, which is literally a ‘we’re not going to deport you,’” Clark said. “It is discretionary. It can be revoked, but it wasn’t revoked”
“All I want is to be with my family, my baby and my partner,” Menjivar Aguilar said.
When Menjivar Aguilar was detained in September, she was approved for a special immigrant juvenile visa. Her attorney is now working with the family to see if they can get her and her baby back together.
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On Tuesday, Nov. 18, advocates, families, and community leaders gathered outside the Phillip Burton Federal Courthouse as a federal judge considered the legality of the Trump administration’s termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 60,000 longtime U.S. residents from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua. The hearing in NTPSA II v. Noem marks a decisive moment for TPS holders, most of whom have lived in the United States for more than 25 years under humanitarian protection.
Earlier this year, despite the district court’s ruling that the terminations were likely unlawful, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed protections issued by the district court and allowed the terminations to take effect, stripping tens of thousands of TPS holders of their lawful status and work authorization.
At Tuesday’s hearing, the district court considered whether to issue a final judgment that would restore protections for these individuals while the case proceeds. The judge did not make a ruling on the parties’ summary judgment motions but indicated she intended to deny the government’s motion to dismiss the case.
Outside the court, plaintiffs spoke about how their lives had been impacted by the TPS terminations.
Inside the courtroom, attorneys presented documents and expert testimony showing that the decisions to end TPS for Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal were motivated by politics and bias rather than legal considerations.
The judge questioned the government’s claims but did not specify when a ruling would be issued.
Legal representatives emphasized their strong commitment to continuing the fight for TPS holders and their families. TPS recipients expressed fear and uncertainty due to the loss of lawful status, despite their decades-long contributions as workers, homeowners, parents, and vital members of their communities.
Approximately 60,000 individuals, many of whom arrived in the U.S. in the 1990s, now face the threat of deportation and family separation, and most already are facing severe economic hardship. TPS holders are essential contributors to industries including construction, childcare, healthcare, and disaster recovery. Ending protections would destabilize families and weaken local economies across the country.
“Families who have lived here legally for decades are now in limbo,” said Francis Garcia of the National TPS Alliance. “Today’s hearing is their chance at justice.”
This case will determine not only the fate of thousands of TPS holders but also the strength of the United States’ humanitarian commitments and the rule of law. Advocates emphasized that the district court’s earlier findings were clear: the terminations were arbitrary, unlawful, and contrary to the purpose of the TPS program. They called on the court to restore TPS protections and urged Congress and the Trump administration to create a permanent legislative solution for all TPS holders.
“We are here to defend our families and our futures,” said Jose Palma, closing the press conference. “TPS holders have built their lives in this country. Home is here, and we deserve stability and dignity.”
The plaintiffs are the National TPS Alliance, which represents hundreds of thousands of TPS holders nationwide; and individual TPS holders from Nicaragua, Honduras, and Nepal who have lost their legal status due to DHS Secretary Noem’s TPS terminations. The plaintiffs are represented by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at UCLA School of Law, the ACLU Foundation of Northern and Southern California, and Haitian Bridge Alliance.
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Atlanta Daily World
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Gerson Aaron Lopez-Funes had established a routine. Whether it was after school or camp, he and his family would pick up his daughter and head straight to a park.
Gerson Aaron Lopez-Funes had established a routine. Whether it was after school or camp, he and his family would pick up his 7-year-old daughter, and then head straight to a park.
The goal was to have his daughter, who’s autistic and non-verbal, get rid of a bit more energy.
On Monday, they left the park and were on their way home when D.C. police pulled Funes over in Northwest D.C.
His sister, Estrella Lopez, said the stop was for an alleged failure to fully stop at a stop sign.
Neighbors, Lopez said, told another family member who got to the scene that they “witnessed my brother calmly asking questions as the officers were pulling him out of the car. My brother was trying to explain to them that my niece is autistic, and if he got out of the car, she was going to be crying in the car, and it was going to put her in a bad place.”
The stop came days before President Donald Trump’s crime emergency in D.C. was scheduled to end. Federal agents arrived on the scene, and Lopez said Funes was taken away.
He’s originally from Honduras, but has lived in D.C. for over 10 years and has applied for asylum. A judge recently gave him a year to find a lawyer and return to court.
“It’s been horrible,” Lopez said. “The only brother I have from mom and dad was taken like a criminal.”
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement records, Funes is in ICE custody and is currently at the Caroline Detention Facility in Caroline County, Virginia. Family members spoke to Funes Thursday morning, Lopez said, adding, “he gets mistreated verbally. It’s very cold. He says it almost feels like a freezer.”
Relatives are concerned, Lopez said, because Funes has asthma and needs medication “because he gets very anxious. And when he gets anxious, he triggers his asthma attacks.”
Now, they’re contacting various community groups and raising money to hire a lawyer, “so that we can potentially just get him out of there, where he is right now,” Lopez said.
Meanwhile, Lopez said Funes’ daughter hasn’t been able to sleep. She cries a lot, because she’s used to her dad telling her stories around bedtime, Lopez said.
“He is the main provider for his family, and I think he was just ripped apart from his family, and in a very unfair way,” Lopez said.
“He was trying to speak to the officers, telling them that he wanted to stay silent when they asked him for his status. He didn’t want to answer that question, because he felt discriminated. They didn’t stop him to ask him that, he thought they stopped him for something else.”
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Scott Gelman
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Internal government documents obtained by CBS News show the Trump administration has expanded its campaign to persuade countries around the world to aid its crackdown on illegal immigration by accepting deportations of migrants who are not their own citizens. Camilo Montoya-Galvez explains.
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By Christian Martinez
(Reuters) -The United States has struck deportation deals with Honduras and Uganda amid a search for additional agreements that would allow the U.S. to deport people living in the country illegally to third-party countries, CBS News reported on Tuesday.
Citing internal documents, CBS reported that the Trump administration has broadened its search for countries which would accept migrants that are not their citizens.
(Reporting by Christian Martinez)
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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Central America is experiencing a wave of unrest that is remarkable even for a region whose history is riddled with turbulence. The most recent example is political upheaval in Guatemala as the country heads for a runoff presidential election in August.
A look at various events roiling Central American countries:
Despite a dissuasion campaign by the U.S. government, migrants are headed toward its southern border in growing numbers ahead of the end of pandemic-era asylum restrictions and proposed new restrictions on those seeking asylum.
Costa Rica’s president is promising to put more police in the streets and he wants legal changes to confront record-setting numbers of homicides that have shaken daily life in a country long known for peaceful stability.
Guatemala is locked in the most troubled presidential election in the country’s recent history. The first round of elections in June ended with a surprise twist when little known progressive candidate Bernardo Arévalo of the Seed Movement party pulled ahead as a front-runner.
Now headed to an August runoff election with conservative candidate and top vote-getter Sandra Torres, Arévalo has thus far managed to survive judicial attacks and attempts by Guatemala’s political establishment to disqualify his party. It comes after other moves by the country’s government to manage the election, including banning several candidates before the first-round vote.
While not entirely unprecedented in a country known for high levels of corruption, American officials call the latest escalation a threat to the country’s democracy.
El Salvador has been radically transformed in the past few years with the entrance of populist millennial President Nayib Bukele. One year ago, Bukele entered an all-out war with the Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatruchas, or MS-13, gangs. He suspended constitutional rights and threw 1 in every 100 people in the country into prisons that have fueled allegations of mass human rights abuses.
The sharp dip in violence that followed Bukele’s actions, combined with an elaborate propaganda machine, has ignited a pro-Bukele populist fervor across the region, with other governments trying to mimic the Bitcoin-pushing leader.
At the same time, Bukele has announced he will run for reelection in February next year despite the constitution prohibiting it. He has also made moves that observers warn are gradually dismantling the nation’s democracy.
President Daniel Ortega is in an all-out crackdown on dissent. For years, regional watchdogs and the U.S. government raised alarms that democracy was eroding under the leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front. That came to a head in 2018 when Ortega’s government began a violent crackdown on protests.
Most recently, Ortega forced hundreds of opposition figures into exile, stripping them of their citizenship, seizing their properties and declaring them “traitors of the homeland.” Nicaragua has thrown out aid groups such as the Red Cross and a yearslong crackdown on the Catholic Church has forced the Vatican to close its embassy. The tightening chokehold on the country has prompted many Nicaraguans to flee their country and seek asylum in neighboring Costa Rica or the United States.
President Xiomara Castro took office last year as the first female president of Honduras, winning on a message of tackling corruption, inequality and poverty. The wife of former President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted in a military coup, she won a landslide victory.
But her popularity has dipped as many of her promises for change have gone unfulfilled. At the same time, the government has sought to mimic neighboring El Salvador’s crackdown on gangs, responding fiercely to a grisly massacre in a women’s prison in June.
Once known as the land of “pura vida” and mild politics compared to the surrounding region, Costa Rica has seen rising bloodshed that threatens to tarnish the country’s reputation as a secure haven. Homicides have soared as the nation has become a base for drug traffickers. President Rodrigo Chavez, who took office last year, has promised more police in the street and tougher laws to take on the uptick in crime.
At the same time, a migratory flight from Nicaragua has overwhelmed the country, which is known as one of the world’s great refuges for people fleeing persecution. The government has since tightened its asylum laws.
Panama is headed into presidential elections in May, with simmering frustration at economic woes, corruption and insecurity acting as a potential harbinger for change. Any shift could have global significance due to Panama’s status as a financial hub.
The nation has also become the epicenter of a steady flow of migration through the perilous jungles of the Darien Gap running along the Colombia-Panama border.
Belize is often seen as a place of relative calm in a region that is anything but. A former British colony named British Honduras, Belize’s government system is still tightly tethered to the country. But Prime Minister Johnny Briceño has sought to distance his nation from the monarchy. The nation is also one of the few in the Americas that maintains formal ties with Taiwan amid a broad effort by China to pull support away from the island country by funneling money into Central America.
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A row between EU and Latin American countries over how — or even whether — to mention the war in Ukraine risks turning what was meant to be the celebration of a renewed partnership into a diplomatic failure.
The first day of a summit between the EU and the Community of the Latin American & the Caribbean States (CELAC) was all about affirming strengthened intercontinental ties. But the lofty talk quickly fell flat as EU negotiators tried to convince Latin American countries to condemn Russia over its war in Ukraine.
Nicaragua and Cuba vehemently opposed the proposed language on Ukraine, according to three EU officials — with one alleging that these two countries had received calls from Moscow advising them to do so.
The row in Brussels came just as Russia refused Monday to extend a U.N.-brokered deal that had allowed Ukraine to export its grain surplus through the Black Sea. Both were stark reminders of how Russia’s hybrid geopolitics seeks to drive a wedge between the rich, pro-Ukrainian West and the rest of the world.
Despite several rounds of negotiations on a joint declaration which leaders could sign off on, there was still no agreement on Monday evening — with some officials fearing that the two-day summit could fail to produce any joint declaration at all.
“I confirm that we are still discussing the text of the communiqué,” said European Council President Charles Michel on Monday afternoon, in an attempt at damage control. “And it means something. It means that we want on both sides an ambitious text.”
An EU diplomat said at the end of Monday’s meeting that “negotiations will go down to the finishing line.” Haggling over the text “does not put the summit into jeopardy — for now.”
Failing to agree a joint declaration would deal a blow to the EU’s credibility at a time when it is seeking to unify voices at the U.N. and beyond in support of Ukraine against a belligerent Russia. Brussels is also trying to become best buddies with Latin America again in the face of an assertive China that is winning market share on the other side of the Atlantic.
“If Russia were to lay down its arms, there would be peace. If Ukraine were to lay down its arms, there would be no more Ukraine,” said Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņs, whose country borders Russia.
“Maybe from a more distant area, it’s not so obvious to understand,” Kariņš added in a clear dig at CELAC countries.
Latest versions of the documents, seen by POLITICO dated July 7 and July 13, showed that the language on Ukraine had been watered down, going from “strongly” condemning Moscow’s “violating” Ukraine’s sovereignty, to just “expressing concern” on the war in Ukraine.
Asked about the holdup, Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina said: “I believe that it is part of this process to find, in this dialogue, a way out that respects the visions of both the EU and CELAC and each of its members.”
Ukraine was not the only contentious issue, with the draft communiqué resembling a shopping list, after each capital pushed to mention their national priorities, such as colonial reparations or the Malvinas islands, over which Argentina and the United Kingdom — which is no longer an EU member — fought a short war 40 years ago.
Barbara Moens contributed reporting.
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Camille Gijs, Sarah Anne Aarup and Hans von der Burchard
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The government of Honduras has announced a crackdown on organised crime within the Central American country’s prison system after an attack in a women’s penal centre left 46 people dead last week.
The Honduran Armed Forces said on Monday that their push “to regain control of the prisons” had begun, dubbing the initiative “Operation Faith and Hope”.
Searches were under way on Monday morning at the Tamara Penal Centre, where the armed forces said they had recovered high-calibre weapons, grenades, ammunition, cell phones and devices for internet access within the prison walls.
The initial search appeared to focus on the men’s prison, though Tamara was also the site of last week’s deadly attack in the Centro Femenino de Adaptacion Social (CEFAS), a women’s detention centre that can house approximately 900 people.
“Operations will continue in other penal centres,” the armed forces said in Twitter posts on Monday.
The June 20 attack in Tamara, approximately 50km (30 miles) northwest of the capital, Tegucigalpa, marked one of the country’s deadliest prison riots in recent memory.
The violence broke out after women from the Barrio 18 street gang confronted their rivals in the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) group in the starkly divided prison, according to the authorities.
Officials have said the gang members were able to infiltrate a rival cell block with guns, machetes and flammable liquids that they used to set their enemies on fire. Some even allegedly brought locks to shut their victims inside their cells as they burned alive.
Eighteen pistols, an assault rifle, two machine pistols and two grenades were reportedly recovered after the attack.
Yuri Mora, a spokesperson for Honduras’s national police, said that 26 of the victims had died in the flames, while the rest succumbed to gunshot and stab wounds.
The attack provoked a public outcry, with family members gathering outside the prison walls and President Xiomara Castro denouncing the violence as “monstrous”.
Castro promised to take “drastic action” in the wake of the prison clash. Last week, she announced that control of 21 of the country’s 26 prisons would revert to the Military Police of Public Order (PMOP), in an attempt to suppress organised crime.
It was a dramatic about-face for an administration that had once sought to demilitarise certain aspects of public security. Last year, Castro had removed the prisons from PMOP authority, putting them instead under the national police.
Castro also said in her announcement that her administration would use islands off Honduras’s coast to house “highly dangerous” gang leaders.
Deadly prison clashes are not unheard of in Honduras: Over the course of a single weekend in 2019, some 37 suspected gang members were killed in prison violence under Castro’s predecessor, Juan Orlando Hernandez.
And in 2017, a government-run shelter for troubled girls saw 41 people killed when mattresses were set on fire as part of a protest against abysmal conditions.
But when the left-wing Castro came into power in January 2022, her administration marked a break from the past. Not only did she become the first female president of Honduras, but her inauguration also ended 12 years of rule by the conservative National Party.
Nevertheless, Castro’s administration has been accused of not doing enough to end gang-related crime in the country.
In December, she announced a state of emergency to address the gangs’ turf wars, but so far, it has failed to dampen the violence.
On Saturday, armed men killed at least 11 people in a shooting at a billiards hall in Choloma, a manufacturing hub linked to the Barrio 18 gang. In response, the government imposed a 15-day curfew in the town and another in nearby San Pedro Sula in northern Honduras.
Officials indicated that the billiards shooting could be linked to an ongoing tit-for-tat between gangs.
“We do not rule out these crimes could be some sort of revenge for what happened in the women’s prison,” said National Police Commissioner Miguel Perez Suazo.
On Monday, images released by the Honduran Armed Forces showed the results of the prison raid, with long lines of suspected gang members stripped to their shorts and seated on the ground under the watch of armed guards.
The images have evoked comparisons to neighbouring El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele has led a controversial “war on gangs”.
As Bukele expanded the country’s penal system — to accommodate the more than 65,000 people arrested — photographs from the country’s new “mega-prison” have shown similar treatment, with male inmates packed tightly in lines on the floor, wearing little but boxer shorts.
A political figure with high approval ratings, according to public-opinion polls, Bukele imposed a state of emergency in March 2022, suspending certain civil liberties in its push to end gang violence in the country.
But critics have warned that the emergency order, which has been renewed since last year, has led to widespread human rights abuses, including indiscriminate arrests and imprisonment as well as a lack of due process.
Eric Olson, a fellow at the Wilson Center, a global affairs think tank, said that countries like El Salvador and Honduras have a tendency to “warehouse young people in prisons”. But that strategy, he explained, can backfire.
“They throw them in over-crowded prisons. And whether they’re gang members or not when they go in, they come out as gang members because that’s the only way they have to survive prison,” Olson told Al Jazeera.
“So in some ways, the prisons themselves become factories for creations of gangs. And it’s a very mistaken notion that you can just incarcerate massive amounts of youth and solve the problem.”
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TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Authorities in Honduras began to hand over to relatives the hacked, burned corpses of 46 women killed in the worst riot at a women’s prison in recent memory.
Some of the bodies were so badly burned they need genetic testing or dental studies to identify, said Yuri Mora, the spokesman for Honduras’ national police investigation agency.
The picture that began to emerge of Tuesday’s violence at the women’s prison in Tamara, Honduras was one of a carefully planned massacre of supposed rival gang members by inmates belonging to the notorious Barrio 18 street gang.
The carnage has led to calls for change to the country’s prison system and even talk of whether Honduras should emulate the drastic zero-tolerance, no-privileges prisons set up in neighboring El Salvador by President Nayib Bukele.
While El Salvador’s crackdown on gangs has given rise to rights violations, it has also proved immensely popular in a country long terrorized by street gangs.
“One of the grave dangers is the Bukele-ization of the security problem in this country, with everything that would imply,” said Honduran human rights expert Joaquin Mejia.
Nobody debates that Honduras’ prisons are in a shameful state. In Tuesday’s riot, incarcerated members of the notorious Barrio 18 gang slaughtered 46 other women inmates by spraying them with gunfire, hacking them with machetes and then locking survivors in their cells and dousing them with flammable liquid.
Chillingly, the gang members were able to arm themselves with pistols and machetes, brush past guards and attack. They even carried locks to shut their victims inside, apparently to burn them to death.
Jessica Sánchez, an activist with the Civil Society Group, a human rights organization, said “we believe that this massacre was carried out on orders from a criminal network, and I am sure it was known beforehand, and nothing was done.”
Miguel Martínez, a security ministry spokesman, said the attack was taped by security cameras up to the moment the gang members destroyed them in what he called a planned attack.
“You can see the moment in which the women overcome the guards, leaving them helpless, and take their keys,” Martínez said.
President Xiomara Castro said the riot at the prison in Tamara northwest of Tegucigalpa was “planned by maras (street gangs) with the knowledge and acquiescence of security authorities.”
Castro fired Security Minister Ramón Sabillón, and replaced him with Gustavo Sánchez, who had been serving as head of the National Police.
She ordered that all of the country’s 21 prisons be placed for one year under the control of the military police, who will be asked to train 2,000 new guards.
But she didn’t announce any immediate plan to improve the conditions in prison, which are characterized by overcrowding and crumbling facilities. Security is so lax that inmates often run their own cellblocks, selling prohibited goods and extorting money from other inmates.
Many doubted the answer lies in adopting the kind of brutally regimented prisons that El Salvador has built.
“Building more prisons in Honduras isn’t necessary. Why? Why build more prisons that turn into slaughterhouses for people, when the government has no control over them?” said Roberto Cruz, 54, who runs a small retail outlet in the capital.
“What is needed are professional people to run the prisons,” Cruz said, acknowledging that “it is a big, complex problem that needs an urgent solution.”
Most don’t trust the government to get it right.
“We demand an international investigation that can really look at the issue of prisons and women” in prison, said Sánchez.
For now, the cold facts of Tuesday’s massacre are emerging: 18 pistols, an assault rifle, two machine pistols and two grenades were found in the prison after the riot. All were smuggled into the facility.
Then there was the shocking fact that — as in many Latin American jails — some of the inmates’ children were living with their mothers in the prison at the time of the attack.
“Some of the women were living with their children in detention. These children are now left behind and highly vulnerable. I am deeply concerned about their well-being and safety,” said Garry Conille, the regional director for UNICEF, the U.N. children’s fund.
It was not known whether any children witnessed the attack.
The riot’s death toll surpassed that of a fire at a female detention center in Guatemala in 2017, when girls at a shelter for troubled youths set fire to mattresses to protest rapes and other mistreatment. The smoke and fire killed 41 girls.
The worst prison disaster in a century also occurred in Honduras, in 2012, at the Comayagua men’s penitentiary, where 361 male inmates died in a fire possibly caused by a match, cigarette or some other open flame.
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CNN
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An 8-year-old migrant girl who died in the custody of US immigration authorities last week was treated for flu-like symptoms for several days prior to her death at a Texas hospital, according to authorities.
The girl, Anadith Danay Reyes Alvarez, a citizen of Panama, died Wednesday in a Harlingen, Texas, hospital, just eight days after her family was taken into custody by US Customs and Border Protection in Brownsville, Texas, the agency said in a news release Sunday. Members of her family, including her parents and two siblings, are all citizens of Honduras, says the news release.
According to CBP records, Reyes was medically assessed on May 10 and did not complain of any illnesses or injuries at the time. However, her family did report a medical history, including chronic conditions of sickle cell anemia and heart disease, according to the news release.
It was not until four days later, on May 14, that Reyes’ mother took her to a treatment area after the girl complained of abdominal pain, nasal congestion and a cough, the release says. At the time, Reyes tested positive for Influenza A and was given several medications, including Tamiflu and Zofran. CBP says she was also given acetaminophen and ibuprofen. She had a temperature of 101.8 degrees, according to the release.
The girl and her family were then taken to the US Border Patrol Station in Harlingen, per agency protocols, CBP said. The Harlingen station is “designated for cases requiring medical isolation for individuals diagnosed with or closely exposed to communicable diseases,” CBP said in the release.
The girl was again assessed by medical personnel after she and her family arrived in Harlingen on May 14. She was given medication for three days, the agency said.
CBP said medical records show Reyes’ mother brought her to the Harlingen medical unit three times on Wednesday. During the first visit, the girl had complained of vomiting, was given Zofran and instructed to hydrate and return as needed.
During the second visit, Reyes complained of stomach pains, according to the release. CBP medical personnel wrote in their records that she was stable and instructed her mother to follow up if needed, the release said.
Reyes’ mother brought her daughter to the medical unit for the third time around 1:55 p.m. CT, according to the release. She was carrying her daughter, who seemed to be having a seizure and then became unresponsive. Medical personnel gave the girl CPR and called for emergency medical help, CBP said.
Emergency medical personnel took the girl and her mother to the Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen. Reyes was pronounced dead less than an hour later, at 2:50 p.m. CT, the release said.
An autopsy was performed on the girl by the Cameron County Medical Examiner’s office Friday but an exact cause and manner of death is still pending, according to the release.
In a statement released Sunday, CBP acting commissioner Troy Miller said “we are deeply saddened by the tragic death” and announced a series of actions intended to “reinforce existing policies and continue to ensure appropriate care for all medically fragile individuals.”
The agency has reviewed and will continue reviewing cases of “all known medically fragile individuals” in custody and, along with the agency’s medical services contractor, will review services rendered to in-custody individuals, “especially those who are medically at-risk,” Miller says in the statement.
“The Department of Homeland Security’s Chief Medical Officer will immediately initiate a review of medical care practices at CBP facilities and ensure the deployment of additional medical personnel as needed,” says Miller.
He added that CBP would make the results of the investigation public.
The girl’s parents have been released from immigration custody and will be headed to New York to meet up with family, the Honduran Foreign Ministry previously told CNN.
Once in New York, the family plans to attend their immigration court hearings and request asylum, according to the ministry.
The Honduran Foreign Ministry is working to help the Reyes family with the transfer of their daughter’s body to New York, where she will likely be buried, the ministry said.
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CLEVELAND, Texas (AP) — Wilson Garcia and his family were among the Latino immigrants who carved out a community inside the thick, piney woods near Cleveland, Texas, through a combination of hard labor, fortitude and love of family, friends and neighbors.
On a 1-acre plot of land bought with a small down payment, Garcia built a home in the Trails End neighborhood that provided nurturing shelter for his family. It was also an inviting space for friends to visit. The lush green space around his home, located about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Houston, reminded Garcia of the countryside of his native Honduras.
“Back home in Honduras, he was a country man … He talked about how beautiful the country is,” said Johnny Ray Gibbs, who has known Garcia for a decade. “I asked him, ’How is it up there (in Cleveland)? He said, ‘Beautiful.’”
That beauty was shattered by gunfire on April 28 when authorities say a neighbor, Francisco Oropeza, responded to a request to stop firing his AR-style rifle late at night by charging into Garcia’s home and killing five people.
The shooting victims included Garcia’s wife, Sonia Argentina Guzmán; and 9-year-old son, Daniel Enrique Laso; family friends Diana Velásquez Alvarado, 21; Jose Jonathan Cacerez, 18, and Cacerez’s girlfriend, Obdulia Julisa Molina Rivera, 29. All were from Honduras.
As the victims were remembered for their efforts to seek better lives in the U.S. or for their bravery in saving children during the shooting, Garcia and his neighbors were uncertain if they and the community they’d worked hard to build would ever recover.
“I don’t have words to describe what happened. It’s like I am alive but at the same time not. What happened was something horrible, ugly,” Garcia told reporters following the shooting.
Oropeza, 38, was captured after a four-day search and jailed on five murder charges.
Weeks before the shooting, Garcia, who works as an electrician, and Guzmán had celebrated the birth of their son. He joined Daniel and a 2½ year old sister in their burgeoning family. Also living in the home was Wilson Garcia’s brother-in-law, Ramiro Guzmán, and his wife and 6-month-old son.
The others in the home during the shooting were extended family and friends who would often stay on weekends, Garcia said.
Shawn Crawford, 52, who lives two houses down, said Garcia and his family “were just good people.” Crawford and her grandchildren had attended kids birthday parties and cookouts at Garcia’s home.
Guzmán’s brother, Germán Guzmán, 28, said his sister came to the U.S. nine years ago so she could help her family.
“Here in Honduras, there’s no work,” he told The Associated Press from the central Honduras town of La Misión.
Crawford said when Guzmán was pregnant last year, Garcia went to Crawford’s home and asked if he could buy a pink flower growing from her Yucca plant, saying it was “good for the unborn baby.” Crawford told him to take one anytime he saw it bloom.
“That’s the neighborhood we were … Everybody just helped each other,” Crawford said.
That help among neighbors was valuable because Trails End was not always an easy place to live.
Residents have been forced to collect money to fix the potholes that riddle the streets because they’re considered private roads and not under the county’s jurisdiction.
The killings highlighted the ongoing problem of residents firing their weapons for fun and slow law enforcement response times to such incidents. Garcia had asked Oropeza if he could fire his weapon farther away because Garcia’s 1½ month old son was trying to sleep.
Dale Tiller, who has lived in the neighborhood for 13 years, said despite these difficult circumstances, people live there because of the “pride in wanting to be a homeowner and live a better life.”
Just a week before the shooting, Garcia had finished converting a carport into another room for his home of three years. The building supplies he had used were still in his front yard days after the shooting.
“Besides the issues we do have, there are really good people here,” Tiller said.
Idalmy Hernandez, 45, said she and the other immigrants in Trails End have fought for the dream of home ownership. When she spoke to Garcia after the shooting, he told her he felt his dream had ended.
“He is very sad,” said Hernandez, who is from Honduras.
At a vigil in front of Garcia’s home, 10-year-old Guillermo Tobon recalled how he would often play soccer with Garcia’s son, Daniel, as they waited for the morning school bus. Soccer was Daniel’s favorite sport. The last time they played was a day before his death.
“We played about 30 minutes until the bus arrived,” Tobon said.
Among the flowers and stuffed animals placed at a memorial in front of Garcia’s home was a letter addressed to Daniel: “You were the best friend ever. You were so good at golie in soccer. You were the best teamate. You will always be in our hearts.”
“It’s very hard because nothing like this has ever happened,” said Manuela Lara, who would often see Garcia and his family at the neighborhood Mexican food stand that Lara owns.
Velásquez Alvarado’s father, Osmán Velásquez, said his daughter had traveled to the United States eight years ago without documents but had recently received U.S. residency status.
Jeffrison Rivera, Velásquez Alvarado’s husband, said in a video posted on immigration activist Carlos Eduardo Espina’s Facebook page that Jonathan Cacerez was his nephew and had been like a father to Molina Rivera’s two children. Rivera said Molina Rivera had only arrived in the last year.
Rivera said his two sons — one 9 months old and the other 6 years old — were among the five children that Velásquez Alvarado and Molina Rivera protected in a closet by hiding them under a pile of clothes.
Oropeza “took my heart. He left my two kids with no mother,” Rivera said.
While the remains of four of the victims will be repatriated to Honduras, Velásquez Alvarado will be buried in the U.S.
Crawford said she thinks the shooting along with comments from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, in which he described the five victims as “illegal immigrants,” have residents in her neighborhood scared. She’s not sure if things will go back to normal, when neighbors were outside barbecuing, walking around with their families.
“I hope it does because that was the nice part of the neighborhood,” Crawford said.
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Associated Press reporter Marlon González in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, contributed to this report.
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Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70
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CNN
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More than 200 officers from multiple law enforcement agencies are searching for the gunman accused of shooting and killing five people, including a 9-year-old child, at a Cleveland, Texas, home after neighbors asked him to stop firing his rifle outdoors, officials said Sunday.
Those officers are going door to door and asking community members for information while authorities are also creating billboard posters in Spanish to inform everyone of the search, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said in a Sunday afternoon news conference.
And there’s now also a collective $80,000 reward being offered for information that leads to the suspect’s arrest, FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge James Smith announced in the news conference.
Francisco Oropesa, 38, is accused of killing four adults and a 9-year-old boy at a neighboring home Friday night in the city of Cleveland – about 40 miles northeast of downtown Houston. Investigators initially started tracking Oropesa using his cellphone, but said that trail went cold Saturday evening – and he could now be anywhere.
“We don’t have any tips right now to where he may be and that’s why we’ve come up with this reward, so that hopefully somebody out there can call us,” Smith said at Sunday’s news conference.
“I can pretty much guarantee you, he’s contacted some of his friends,” Smith said, adding, “We just don’t know what friends they are and that’s what we need from the public, is any type of information because right now we’re running into dead ends.”
In a Twitter post earlier Sunday, the FBI warned the suspect is “armed and dangerous” and urged anyone who saw Oropesa not to approach him.
The US has suffered at least 184 mass shootings in the first four months of this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The nonprofit, like CNN, defines mass shootings as those in which four or more people are shot – not including the shooter.
Authorities said Sunday they were focused on capturing the suspect and bringing closure and justice to the five people killed. A day earlier, the sheriff described how the violence unfolded.
“The victims, they came over to the fence said, ‘Hey, could you mind not shooting out in the yard. We have a young baby that is trying to go sleep,’” Capers said Saturday.
The suspect, who had been drinking, responded: “I’ll do what I want to in my front yard.”
At some point, a doorbell camera at the home of the victims captured the suspect approaching with his rifle, Capers said.
Then the home turned into a scene of carnage. Multiple people were later found dead in different rooms.
Nine-year-old Daniel Enrique Laso-Guzman was shot and killed. So were Sonia Argentina Gúzman, 25; Diana Velázquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31, and José Jonathan Cásarez, 18.
All five were shot “almost execution style” – above the neck at close range, the sheriff said.
Five other people who were home during the rampage were not hurt, Capers said. Three children were found covered in blood and were taken to a hospital, but were not injured.
Authorities believe two women died while using their bodies to shield the children who survived.
“The three children … were covered in blood from the same ladies that were laying on top of them trying to protect them,” the sheriff said Sunday. Those children are now safe and with family, he added.
A vigil for the 9-year-old boy was scheduled to take place Sunday evening, the sheriff said. Authorities initially reported the boy was 8 years old, but his father told CNN on Sunday his son turned 9 in January.
Wilson Garcia, the father of the young boy killed, said they called 911 five times Friday night to report the suspect shooting his firearm.
Capers, the sheriff, said Sunday authorities got to the scene as fast as they could but there is a small force covering a large county. The home where the shooting took place is about 15 minutes outside of town.
Garcia said he and two other men walked over to Oropesa to ask him to stop shooting so close to their home because their baby was sleeping. He said they asked Oropesa to shoot on the other side of his property.
About 10 to 20 minutes later, the suspect came back, walked up to the house and started shooting, killing Garcia’s wife, Sonia Argentina Gúzman, first at the front door of the home, he said.
Garcia said he jumped out of a window and ran – adding another woman told him he had to survive because his children didn’t have a mother anymore and needed him.
Authorities had received previous calls about Oropesa allegedly shooting his rifle in the front yard, the sheriff said.
Law enforcement initially spelled the suspect’s name as “Oropeza” but the FBI said Sunday it will use the spelling “Oropesa” to “better reflect his identity in law enforcement systems.” The FBI acknowledged he has been listed in various databases with both spellings.
Oropesa was known to shoot a .223 rifle, Capers said. Shell casings were also found outside the home after the shooting.
Authorities found at least three weapons inside the suspect’s home and spoke to the suspect’s wife, the sheriff said.
Oropesa’s cell phone was found abandoned, along with articles of clothing, Capers said.
“The tracking dogs from Texas Department of Corrections picked up the scent, and then they lost that scent,” he said.
Authorities said Sunday they did not know if the suspect was still in the area.
“If anybody, whether you are here in this county, or this state of Texas or around the country, have any tips, we’re asking you to please call” authorities, Smith, with the FBI, said. “Right now, we have zero leads.”
Some of those inside the home had moved there from Houston just days ago, the sheriff said.
Wilson Paz, director general of migrant protection for Honduras, told CNN all five victims were Honduran.
The Honduran Consulate in Houston is offering support to the victims’ families and preparing to repatriate the five people killed, the Honduran Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted on Twitter.
“The Government of Honduras deeply regrets the loss of these valuable lives and accompanies all their loved ones in their pain,” the statement said. “We demand that the pertinent authorities arrest the perpetrator of this terrible event and apply the full weight of the law.”
Correction: A previous version of this story gave the wrong photo of the suspect due to incorrect information provided by the FBI Houston Field Office.
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TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduras became the second country in Central America to declare a state of emergency to fight gang crimes like extortion.
For years, street gangs have charged protection money from bus and taxi drivers and store owners in Honduras, as in neighboring El Salvador.
Late Thursday, Honduran President Xiomara Castro proposed a measure to limit constitutional rights so as to round up gang members.
“This social democratic government is declaring war on extorsion, just as it has, since the first day, declared wars on corruption, impunity and drug trafficking,” Castro said. The measure must still be approved by Congress. “We are going to eradicate extortion in every corner of our country.”
On Friday, Jorge Lanza the leader of the bus operators in Honduras, supported the move, saying bus drivers were tired of being threatened and killed for not paying protection money. Lanza said drivers had been asking for a crackdown for years.
“We can’t put up any longer with workers being killed and paying extortion,” Lanza said. “We hope these measures work and remain in place.”
Lanza said that 50 drivers have been killed so far in 2022, and a total of 2,500 have been killed over the last 15 years. He estimated the companies and drivers have paid an average of about $10 million per month to the gangs in order to operate.
Honduras hasn’t specified exactly what the state of emergency would entail, but normally such measures temporarily suspend normal rules regulating arrests and searches; sometime limits on freedom of speech and assembly are implemented as well.
In neighboring El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele requested Congress grant him extraordinary powers after gangs were blamed for 62 killings on March 26, and that emergency decree has been renewed every month since then. It suspends some Constitutional rights and gives police more powers to arrest and hold suspects.
That measure has proved popular among the public in El Salvador, and has resulted in the arrest of more than 56,000 people for alleged gang ties.
But nongovernmental organizations have tallied several thousand human rights violations and at least 80 in-custody deaths of people arrested during the state of exception.
Rights activists say young men are frequently arrested just based on their age, appearance or whether they live in a gang-dominated slum.
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