Progressive Political News

The UN’s top expert on the occupied Palestinian territories has called for medical professionals worldwide to cut ties with Israel after it destroyed northern Gaza’s last operational hospital and abducted its director, sparking an outcry. UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese called on the medical community to act on Monday, as…

Trump’s inauguration committee is on pace to raise more funds than any other president’s committee in history.

In the heartland of Louisiana, between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, a 150-mile corridor along the Mississippi River tells a tale of environmental degradation, social injustice, and economic struggle. This region, home to more than 150 behemoth chemical facilities and oil refineries, is also home to numerous communities, predominantly low-income and marginalized. Nearly 50 percent of the residents are African American, their roots intertwined with the land for centuries, dating back to the days of slavery when they were forced to cut and process sugarcane on vast plantations that dominated Louisiana’s River Parishes.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports a staggering 95 percent higher risk of cancer due to air pollution for residents in this area compared with the rest of the United States. This tragedy has earned the corridor the morbid moniker “Cancer Alley,” a term underscored in 2021 by United Nations human rights experts as a stark example of environmental racism.

On the front lines of this battle, women—most of them African American—are powering the environmental justice movement. Here are a few of their stories.

These photos, along with another version of this story, are scheduled to appear in the January 2025 edition of Country Roads magazine in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

A watchdog group that has sounded the alarm about various picks for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s next administration released a Monday report focused on the consulting and nonprofit work of incoming immigration official Tom Homan. Homan, who was acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during Trump’s first term, is set to serve…

President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to impose trade tariffs ranging from 25 percent to 100 percent unless Mexico “secures” its border with the United States. The concept of using Mexico as an arm of the U.S. immigration enforcement is not new. 

During his first administration, Trump pressured Mexico to increase the number of detentions and deportations of migrants from Mexico, accelerating a trend that had already begun under the Obama Administration. Mexico became a de facto detention center, where migrants from Latin America and other parts of the world seeking protection in the U.S. were forced to wait while their cases—and futures—were decided.

Over the course of the Trump and Obama Administrations, I traveled across Mexico and witnessed firsthand the transformation these pressures were causing in the Mexican immigration system. I observed increasing numbers of checkpoints and raids in highways, bus stations, and workplaces throughout Mexico. 

As a result of these efforts, migrants from Central and South America were moving increasingly to and through isolated areas in Mexico to avoid detection and detention. This mirrors what has been thoroughly documented along the U.S. border, where migrants attempt to cross through more remote (and therefore deadly) areas to avoid the U.S. Border Patrol.

I also witnessed a burgeoning migration industry throughout Mexico, an industry that had once existed mainly along the U.S. border. Towns that were previously far away from migrant routes have become key transit points, shaping local economies and turning migrants into commodities rather than recognizing their humanity.

In border areas, on both sides, I observed how the criminalization and persecution of migrants by Mexican authorities at all levels forced them to wander the streets, beg for food, and gather around bus stations, shelters, or any place that felt marginally safer than being out in the open. And I saw increasing numbers of migrants stranded without the means to move forward in various parts of Mexico that were previously not frequented by migrants. 

As a result, migrants became more and more visible to locals. And, just like we have seen in the United States, this visibility has led Mexican locals to complain that migrants use services meant for Mexicans or bring undesirable diseases into the country. By the time I left the field, migrants were frequently conveying to me and other investigators that they experienced discrimination in Mexico in jobs and the receipt of essential services like health care and education. 

Mexico is being pushed into treating migrants from other countries, including Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, in the same way that the U.S. has treated undocumented Mexicans for decades. And in its eagerness to serve U.S. interests, Mexico has transformed its relationship with migrants, allowing the same abuses of migrants that occur on the U.S. side of the border. 

To date, Mexico has shown willingness to cooperate with Trump’s immigration plans. This cooperation is key: Mexico’s immigration policies can help him realize his much-touted dream of a completely closed U.S. border, while avoiding the challenges he can expect within the United States.

But will Mexico continue to cooperate with Trump? Maybe. The Mexican government has seen a change in head of state since Trump’s last term. Its newly elected president, Claudia Sheinbaum, will face internal resistance to stepped-up immigration enforcement from civil and religious organizations that have expanded their support of migrants over the last few years. And Trump’s overreach will likely be met with pushback here in the United States.

Trump’s economic clout is powerful, and anti-immigrant sentiment has a foothold in Mexico. Only time will tell whether that is enough to hold the countries’ border-based partnership together. In the meantime, I expect to see more of the same: migrants suffering at the hands of two states in a system that does not deter migrants, but only punishes them.

This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.

Disagreements within the Republican conference in the House of Representatives over who should be the next Speaker of the House could potentially lead to a constitutional crisis, temporarily upending the formal process of inaugurating President-elect Donald Trump. Current Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) presided over a tenuous and razor-thin majority over the past year following the…

Israeli forces are reportedly detaining Kamal Adwan Hospital Director Hussam Abu Safiya in a camp notorious for torture, sexual assault and killings of Palestinians, after abducting him and carrying out a massacre in the hospital last week. CNN reported on Monday, citing Palestinians recently released from Israeli custody, that Israel is holding Safiya in Sde…

In a New Orleans courtroom one afternoon this April, three federal appeals court judges questioned a lawyer for the country’s largest health insurance company. They wanted to know why United Healthcare had denied coverage for a 15-year-old girl named Emily Dwyer, whose anorexia had taken such a toll on her body that she had arrived…

Former President Jimmy Carter died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, at 100 years old. The 39th president served a single, tumultuous term in the White House from 1977 to 1981. As we begin our look at his life and legacy, we hear Carter’s own words in a Democracy Now! interview discussing his book…