Central America

Climate Stress Spells Cycles of Distress for Farmers

Climate Stress Spells Cycles of Distress for Farmers

As climate disasters increase, so too does the cost associated with them. A new UN report on disaster risk reduction shows that disaster events across the world have steadily increased over the past few decades and they are only predicted to grow in regularity, to the point where we will soon be facing 1.5 disasters each day across the world.

The average number of disaster events per year between 1980 and 1999 was 200, and in 2015 there were 400. By 2030, the number of disasters may balloon to upwards of 560 per year and the average trends suggest a 30% increase from 2000 to 2030.

Advocates Push for Canada to Protect Climate Migrants

Advocates Push for Canada to Protect Climate Migrants

A group of Canadian lawyers have been advocating for small advances in Canadian immigration policy to accommodate the realities of climate impacts on human mobility. Like most countries, Canada does not recognize climate migrants under its current immigration law, but the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers points to past disasters – like the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and 2004 South East Asian tsunami - as example of times the government offered special directives to persons seeking refuge.

The Gaps in Migration Mitigation Aid

The Gaps in Migration Mitigation Aid

Aid alone has not shown to be a viable long term solution. Under the Obama administration, then VP Biden’s multi-million dollar economic development package intended to stimulate local growth and slow migration did the exact opposite, showcased by record migrant arrivals in 2019. That aid package proved what many experts have pointed to throughout the years: international aid does not always reach those most in need.

Following Hurricane Devastation in Central America, Experts Weigh in on Migration & US Protection

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies report over 4.3 million Central Americans - including 3 million Hondurans - have been impacted by Hurricane Eta alone, which struck Nicaragua on November 3rd. Those numbers rose when Hurricane Iota struck two weeks later, again in Nicaragua on November 16th.

The Red Cross America’s division described conditions as a "triple emergency” in Honduras and Guatemala of: hurricane Eta, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the years-long drought that has deeply impacted agriculture, making even subsistence agriculture, impossible across large sections of the region. The Red Cross says it is now readying for internal displacement, as well as migration across borders, as a result.

Hurricanes Wreak Havoc on Central America, Demonstrating Region’s Vulnerability to Climate Change

Just two weeks after Hurricane Eta devastated parts of Central America, with Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua worst hit, Hurricane Iota made landfall in Nicaragua during the early hours of November 17, just 15 miles south of where Eta had first hit the region. With more than 2.5 million people from Panama to Belize already impacted in some way by Hurricane Eta, the region is facing an unprecedented situation, especially given Iota’s distinction as the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in Nicaragua in the month of November.

The back-to-back storms have created an overwhelming situation for government officials and aid groups, who are struggling to temporarily house those displaced by the storms, a particularly difficult task during a pandemic. Heavy rains have caused flooding and landslides, which have wiped out entire communities. One village in Guatemala was covered in mud 50 feet deep in some places.

America Needs Refugees - Our Thoughts on a NY Times Op-Ed

Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan by Amali Tower

Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan by Amali Tower

Jessica Goudeau has a book about refugees releasing soon, a tale of two refugees in America within the larger context of modern refugee resettlement in the United States, which under the Trump administration, has been systematically targeted for destruction, that she details today in a New York Times Op-Ed. 

As a humanitarian and refugee rights activist that began her career in refugee resettlement, I have worked the entire exhaustive and vetted process that is the United States Refugee Admissions Program. That is to say, I have worked every main artery of a system that refers the less than 1 percent of global refugees considered for resettlement, based on protection needs, from the UN Refugee Agency to the US government, and all its intermediaries that work on its behalf in interviewing, vetting, preparing, counseling and so much more. 

Goudeau is right that refugees are the most thoroughly vetted of any group to enter the United States, and this after enduring unspeakable horrors of persecution and violence in their home countries and years of exile in host countries. There simply is no truth to continued claims that refugees, and immigrants, as a whole, present a security threat to the United States. 

The US, which used to resettle the largest number of refugees within its borders, has consistently lowered the annual refugee admissions ceiling since Donald Trump’s election.  

At a time when 1 percent of the global population is displaced  - nearly 80 million people- 1 million of whom are refugees eligible for resettlement, the Trump administration yet again slashed the refugee admissions ceiling in 2020 to only 18,000. 

A program that began in 1980 with the passage of the Refugee Act and a refugee admissions ceiling of 231,700, the ceiling has had highs and lows since that time, but never as low as its current level. 

In 2016, the year before Trump took office, the Obama administration raised the ceiling by 15,000 persons to 85,000 with plans to resettle Syrian refugees desperately in need of durable solutions. 

The very next year, after Trump took office, the ceiling was drastically lowered to 50,000 and it’s been a freefall downward spiral ever since. 


At a time when the US border receives a steady stream of Central American asylum-seekers fleeing violence, persecution, corruption, state repression and also the growing impacts of climate change, this assault on asylum policy and the refugee admissions program is truly detrimental to individual lives. In addition, it comes at a time when the conversation should be widening to include climate justice policies that take into account the realities of migrant farmers and rural asylum-seekers who are telling us a shifting global reality, important to our collective human security, if only we would listen.