Adam Isacson

Both headlines are from today.

So good to catch a glimpse of the absolutely massive but lately eclipsed America that’s not boat strikes, detention warehouses, civilizational threats, AI grifts, and legislative cowardice. More, please.

After 7 1/2 months, if your serial murder strategy was actually *deterring* small-boat drug trafficking on the high seas, you know what you wouldn't be seeing right now?

*4 boats in 4 days*. You wouldn't see that.

Is the goal "deterrence" or just "extremist troll messaging?"

Extrajudicial executions still occurring with bureaucratic—or as Hannah Arendt would say, banal—efficiency and regularity.

This is about ICE’s raids of private residences without judicial warrants, but it goes for so much other naked lawbreaking over the past 15 months.

See also: Boat strikes, violating congressional appropriations, violating court orders, and other crimes by people who know better.

https://nyti.ms/42b4RE1

Texas is the only border state that hasn't legalized and regulated recreational cannabis. So CBP now makes 94% of its border marijuana seizures in Texas.

I want to know what's going on with the people busted for carrying the other 6% into states where dispensaries are plentiful.

169 people extrajudicially executed in 46 strikes.

Stay disgusted.

Convinced that supply issues aren't going to get any better (AI bubble, Iran war, fuel prices), I just ordered a new desktop — the best I can afford — even though my current one could probably last another year.

Apple will have it ready for me by… July 7.

- 158 people killed in 188 days. Guilt for a non-capital crime unknown.
- 42 separate attacks.
- 27 in the Eastern Pacific. 13 in the Caribbean. 2 unspecified.
- 17 listed as at Donald Trump's orders. 16 at Pete Hegseth's orders. The last 9 at the orders of Southcom's Gen. Francis Donovan.

Latin America-Related Events in Washington and Online This Week

7 events about Latin America this week, that I know about, that can be attended in person in Washington or online anywhere.

https://adamisacson.com/latin-america-related-events-in-washington-and-online-this-week-103/

If just 1 or 2 Republican senators had voted to assert congressional war powers on "lethal boat strikes" and Venezuela, this White House wouldn't have taken it as a green light to start a new war today on the president's whim.

(From https://adamisacson.com/tracking-war-powers-resolution-votes-in-congress/)

Added new information to the illegal boat strikes tracker.

They have to know we're always watching.

https://adamisacson.com/boat-strikes/

Latin America-Related Events in Washington and Online This Week

10 events about Latin America this week, that I know about, that can be attended in person in Washington or online anywhere.

https://adamisacson.com/latin-america-related-events-in-washington-and-online-this-week-104/

March 21 will be 1 year since this administration fired nearly everyone at DHS’s internal oversight offices handling civil rights complaints, detention violations, and more. A year of rising violations—and victims now have far less recourse.

WOLA and the Kino Border Initiative will release a report and host an event to mark this. Join us next Thursday: https://www.wola.org/events/denouncing-into-the-void-the-dismantling-of-internal-oversight-and-accountability-at-dhs/

It cost a combined $53,098,863.70 to detain 708 migrants at Guantánamo in 2025.

That's $74,998.40 per person—for an average stay of 14 days.

Source: Defense Department IG report at https://www.dodig.mil/reports.html/Article/4418859/operation-southern-guard-osg/

At a time when so many big institutions and corporations have been caving to authoritarian bullying, I thank Anthropic for not doing that.

Those of us who remember the Cold War recall that it was the _other side_ that would order firms to produce things at their command.

From WOLA: Instead of investing in the brave people and institutions working to break links between states and organized crime, the 2027 foreign aid request puts on its blinders and focuses on late-20th-century drug-war priorities.

https://www.wola.org/analysis/key-things-to-know-about-the-proposed-foreign-aid-budget-for-fy2027/

Five boats hit in five days. This means either:

- These aren't drug boats: the intelligence is sloppy, or the killing is happening just for the sake of it
- These *are* drug boats: there are so many out there because this strategy isn't deterring anyone

Either way, a failure.

4 of the 6 most populous countries in Latin America, 3 of them with groups on the State Department's "terrorist list," were not present for Donald Trump's "counter-cartel" summit in Florida today.

Venezuela's Orinoco Mining Arc—like too much of the Amazon basin—is being poisoned by a violent nexus of criminal groups, corrupt military officers, and crooked politicians. Despite the January 3 U.S. raid, nothing has changed.

In a new podcast, Brooklyn College's Mark Ungar explains how environmental organized crime has become so seamlessly blended into the regular economy that it's nearly impossible to root out.

https://www.wola.org/multimedia/its-so-seamlessly-blended-into-the-regular-economy-that-its-hard-to-pull-out-environmental-organized-crime-in-venezuela-and-throughout-the-americas/

In the latest @WOLA_org Border Update:

- Data, halfway into FY2026
-3 years' ICE and USBP funding through "reconciliation?"
-DHS organizational culture
-ICE detention conditions
-Border wall updates
-Updates from the migration route

https://www.wola.org/2026/04/u-s-mexico-border-update-border-data-reconciliation-bill-dhs-transition-ice-detention-wall-migration-route/

The Trump admin has set up a layered, overlapping web of obstacles to asylum, placing protection in the US out of reach. "Pretermissions," an especially virulent tactic, have skyrocketed.

Listen to this podcast discussion with attorney-advocates Heather Hogan of AILA and Peter Habib of CGRS:

https://www.wola.org/multimedia/the-all-out-assault-on-asylum

Video shows a stationary boat with 2 engines. If there's a cargo hold, it's certainly not a big one.

Also: "applying total systemic friction?" What a sad, bowels-of-the-Pentagon PowerPoint slide nonsense way to say "killing people with no self-defense justification or due process."

https://bit.ly/4cjbZTr

RE: @adam@elefanti.co

Here is video of this great discussion with Laura Dib and Francisco Monaldi about why Venezuela's oil sector won't advance without the rule of law, and why the rule of law in turn depends on democracy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSEXjc_qDN4

Latin America-Related Events in Washington and Online This Week

7 events about Latin America this week, that I know about, that can be attended in person in Washington or online anywhere.

https://adamisacson.com/latin-america-related-events-in-washington-and-online-this-week-108/

Halfway through fiscal 2026, which began in October, CBP's cocaine seizures at US borders are just over half of 2025's full-year total (36,700 pounds past 6 months vs. 70,100 pounds all of last year).

Terrible news for fans of the lethal boat strikes that started last September: no impact at all.

Amid violent arrests, detention deaths, harm to children…is there any place where victims of ICE and CBP abuses can get redress?

Or, since the Trump administration gutted DHS’s oversight offices last March 21st, are they “denouncing into the void?”

Join us for a report launch next Thursday: https://www.wola.org/events/denouncing-into-the-void-the-dismantling-of-internal-oversight-and-accountability-at-dhs/

Interesting: CBP's seizures of fentanyl at the U.S.-Mexico border had been declining, often sharply, since mid-2023.

But since early 2025, the declines stopped.

Halfway into fiscal 2026, seizures are almost exactly half of 2025's full-year total: a flat trendline.

In the latest Border Update from WOLA:

Kristi Noem leaves DHS in turmoil. Border walls may be coming to Big Bend National Park. 10 people have died this year in ICE's rapidly expanding detention system. ICE training cut from 72 to 42 days. New reports from Mexico.

Read on: https://www.wola.org/2026/03/u-s-mexico-border-update-turmoil-at-dhs-big-bend-border-wall-ice-detention-deaths-and-expansion/

I'm putting together a presentation, and came across this old slide with headlines about Border Patrol human rights allegations from late 2021 and early 2022.

This sort of thing used to be confined to the border zone, but now it's national.

Just 2 senators didn't vote with their party on yesterday's Iran war powers resolution:

- Rand Paul (R-KY) voted with the Democrats, as he has on past Venezuela and "boat strikes" resolutions
- John Fetterman (D-PA) voted with the Republicans, as he did on a "boat strikes" resolution

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1192/vote_119_2_00046.htm

"Business as usual—which means state-sponsored extraction with organized crime."

Listen to our latest podcast with Mark Ungar about the organized crime-tied corruption poisoning the Amazon in Venezuela and beyond. The January 3 US attack changed nothing.

https://www.wola.org/multimedia/its-so-seamlessly-blended-into-the-regular-economy-that-its-hard-to-pull-out-environmental-organized-crime-in-venezuela-and-throughout-the-americas/