Mexico; North America

As the COVID-19 coronavirus began walloping Mexico, wildcat strikes by assembly plant workers concerned about their health and their futures rippled across the country during March and April.

When four thousand women from forty-nine countries met in a Zapatista community to find ways to end violence against women, we knew what we were up against. Many, if not most, of the women brought with them the scars of gender violence. We also knew we were meeting at a critical and contradictory point in the history of women’s movements–a point when an all-time high in public attention and mobilization coincides with a rise in the violence the movements aim to stop.

In its fifteenth year, the Caravan of Central American mothers brought together six families. In total, the caravan has chalked up 315 reunions. Along the way it empowers women and challenges a system that considers their loved ones expendable.

For the past year, Ciudad Juarez has been a flashpoint of the migrant and refugee humanitarian crisis gripping the U.S.-Mexico border. Now hundreds of other people-mainly women and children-are camped out at the international bridge, but this latest group of refugees is Mexican.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador delivered his first state of the union address on September 1 from a position of strength, in spite of the fact that the first nine months in office have failed to produce results in several key areas.

Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador recently made two announcements that could finally close the bloodiest chapter in the history of the United States’ global war on drugs. He called for ending the Merida Initiative—the 3 billion-dollar US counternarcotics aid package that has fueled Mexico’s drug war—and announced a pivot from prohibition.

There’s nothing “uncontrollable” about people applying for asylum. All the U.S. has to do is meet its obligations under international law.