General

The State Department on Friday, May 22, took an incremental, yet important step toward reestablishing a limited diplomatic relationship with Cuba similar to what existed under the Clinton Administration -- high-level migration meetings between Havana and Washington.  See AP article here.

The Obama administration’s State Department has released a “Summary and Highlights” document for its 2010 foreign assistance request, which offers some significant clues about where future aid is headed.

When we started working with faith-based and grassroots groups to plan this year's Days of Prayer and Action, Colombians were being forced to flee their homes at the staggering, almost unbelievable rate of 1,500 a day. By the time 2008 was said and done, nearly 400,000 had become internally displaced people (IDPs) and Colombia's displaced population had swelled to more than 4 million, overtaking Sudan in the seeming-blink-of-an-eye as the country with the world's most displaced people. We knew we had to do something to make this crisis visible to people here in the United State and to our government that has funded and supported so many of the policies that have exacerbated this humanitarian crisis.

It’s hard to believe—the Latin America Working Group has completed a quarter-century of campaigning for a just U.S. policy towards Latin America.  Right now we’re celebrating this history:  our collective work to shift U.S. support from war to peace in Central America; to increase U.S. aid for victims of hurricanes, earthquakes and war; to build U.S. counternarcotics policies that are more humane and effective; to promote border policies that respect the rights of border communities and migrants; and to end, once and for all, the Cuba travel ban. 

If you’ve called your member of Congress on these issues, if you’ve contributed to our cause, if you’ve sent our messages on to your friends, if you’re a member or supporter of any of the groups in our coalition—then this is your history, too.