El Salvador

Despite the standstill in Congress on immigration reform, state and local governments have been very active in passing their own immigration legislation. In this article for Foreign Policy, I look at what different states and cities are doing regarding immigration and the effects of their policies. You can read the beginning of the piece below:  With all the mudslinging and acrimony in Washington over unaccompanied minors and unauthorized immigrants, you might have missed it. Immigration reform has already happened -- in fact, hundreds of times. With the federal government incapacitated, states, cities, and municipalities have stepped into the fray. In 2013 alone, forty-five of the fifty state legislatures passed over four hundred laws and resolutions on everything from law enforcement and employment to education and public benefits. Among this flurry were a few in the Arizona SB 1070 style -- bills making life more miserable for undocumented immigrants. These laws ranged from blocking access to health care and schools to criminalizing common activities such as driving cars or buying homes. But the majority are actually designed to find ways to integrate undocumented immigrants -- funding English language and citizenship classes and providing access to medical care and other social services. You can read the rest of the piece here on ForeignPolicy.com.

Earlier this week, Salvadorans headed to the polls to cast their ballots in a presidential runoff election, since on February 2 the candidates failed to reach the 50 percent threshold to avoid a second round. In the runoff’s lead up, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, a former guerrilla commander and the current vice president from the ruling party, looked poised for an easy win over his closest opponent Norman Quijano from the conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA). But with the final ballot count separating the candidates by some 0.2 percent of the votes and with allegations of fraud, it seems that the protests and debates surrounding this election are far from over. The Costa Rican elections were also held on February 2 and similarly, were pushed into a run-off scheduled for April 6. With second place finisher Johnny Araya’s (from the ruling National Liberation Party) recent exit from the race, Leftist Luis Guillermo Solís’s (from the Citizens’ Action Party) victory is all but assured. While neither of these two elections are yet resolved, there are others on the horizon in Latin America. On May 4, Panamanians will elect their president for the next five years. Current President Ricardo Martinelli’s time in office is coming to an end, at least for now, given Panama’s restriction that presidents must wait two terms before trying again for office. Though Martinelli and his conservative Democratic Change (CD) party led Panama through a period of extraordinary 8 percent (on average) economic growth and declining crime, the country’s stark income inequality (which I talk about in this blog post) combined with shifting political alliances, could provide headwinds for the party’s candidate José Domingo Arias. On May 25, Colombians will head to the ballot boxes to decide whether or not to reelect President Juan Manuel Santos. As of now, Santos’s odds look fairly good—garnering 26 percent of the vote in a hypothetical “next-day election” scenario; 19 percent more than his nearest rival, Óscar Iván Zuluaga of the Democratic Center party, 18 percent more than Enrique Peñalosa of the Green Alliance party, and far above the more recent entrant to the race, Marta Lucía Ramírez from the Conservative Party. Santos  is staking much of his campaign on the peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (even as Colombians become increasingly pessimistic over its success), and he will also face tough questioning over his economic policies and subsequent handling of rural protests (that pushed his approval ratings down to 25 percent last August). Still, his popular support has rebounded—up to near 40 percent in March—and this momentum, without a strong challenger, will likely take him back to the Casa de Nariño. October brings presidential elections in Brazil, Bolivia, and Uruguay. In Brazil, most expect President Dilma Rousseff of the Worker’s Party (PT) to win reelection against Aecio Neves (from the PSBD party) and Eduardo Campos (from the PSB party). Still, with economic growth faltering, worries about the coming World Cup (with latest reports questioning both the sporting event’s expense and the country’s readiness), and still vivid memories of last summer’s widespread protests, a unified challenger could make the race interesting. That same day Bolivians will also be casting their ballots. Evo Morales is up for his third term, after a constitutional amendment in 2009 allowed for reelection and a 2013 constitutional court decision decided that his first term did not count toward the two term limit (since it began before the new Constitution). With twelve parties and a crowded race, no serious challenger has emerged to take on Morales. Still, questions remain whether the president’s Movement for Socialism (MAS) can gain an absolute majority—potentially frustrating any major policy changes. Uruguay’s famously spartan President Jose Mujica will bid goodbye to a presidential palace in which he never lived. The frontrunner for his position is former president and Broad Front colleague Tabaré Vázquez, who left office in 2010 with an approval rating of over 60 percent. A Vázquez victory would mean continuity for the country and a continuation of Mujica’s policies, such as the country’s marijuana regulation and renewable energy promotion.

This is a guest post by Natalie Kitroeff, a research associate here at the Council on Foreign Relations who works with me in the Latin America program. She received her BA from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina has been acting strange lately. Just one month after his inauguration, he is already ruffling U.S. feathers, and making waves in the politics of the region in unexpected ways. Pérez Molina’s military past and hard-line “mano dura” security policy made many worry that he would backtrack on justice reforms led by the UN Commission against Impunity (CICIG) and the new Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz. Instead, the new president has come out in support of these institutions. Last week he announced that when CICIG’s mandate runs out in 2013, he plans on extending it for another two years without seeking congressional approval. This preemptive decision was in response to a lawsuit filed last month against Álvaro Colom, alleging that CICIG has no right to be in the country because the executive branch bypassed congress to approve its current mandate. The interior minister followed up by asking CICIG to vet his staff to identify any links they may have with organized crime. Vowing to keep Paz y Paz on board for the foreseeable future, Pérez Molina has also stayed neutral as her office tries former de facto President Efraín Ríos Montt on crimes against humanity charges for his role in the civil war (in which the current president was deeply involved). But after this string of pleasant surprises, Pérez Molina’s most recent about face has drawn annoyance and even anger from the United States. Last Saturday he raised the possibility of legalizing drugs in Central America, saying he’d put the debate on the table in future meetings with regional leaders. He followed through on this promise on Monday, when he discussed decriminalization with Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes (who first agreed to consider the option, and later retracted facing pressure from Washington). The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala responded with a swift condemnation of the proposal. So what is Pérez Molina’s endgame? A popular theory is that he’s trying to pressure the United States into lifting its ban on weapons sales to Guatemala, instituted in 1978 due to the military’s role in human rights abuses during the civil conflict. This makes sense. The president has spoken openly and frequently about his desire to buy U.S. arms, pressing the issue with head of Southern Command Douglas Fraser during their meeting last November (Fraser said the embargo may well be lifted in the near future). Threatening to decriminalize drugs as a last resort solution the problem of organized crime could pressure the United States to offer an alternative: renewed military aid. But Pérez Molina may also be making a more ambitious attempt to alter the long-standing foundations of U.S. relations with Guatemala and Central America more broadly. The six-country region has largely been an afterthought in U.S. security cooperation with Latin America, which has historically centered on the larger economies of Colombia and Mexico. In FY2013 Central America will receive $60 million in U.S. security aid– less than half of the funds destined for Colombia and a third of total aid to Mexico – and of that Guatemala gets a paltry $2 million. Meanwhile, Pérez Molina inherited a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world, and an impunity rate of 95 percent (meaning just 5 in every 100 crimes are solved). The legalization debate is a way of putting Central America – and Guatemala in particular – on the United States’ radar screen. It is also a way of asserting the country’s autonomy from Washington. Pérez Molina joins a long list of leaders calling for decriminalization, including former presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. In an era of waning American influence in Latin America, he may to be trying to align Guatemala more closely with its regional partners, pulling a country long beholden to the United States out from under its powerful shadow.