After the immigration reform bill failed in 2007, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency began actively promoting a largely dormant program that trains local law enforcement to perform the duties of federal immigration officers. As local communities increasingly become the front lines of the immigration war, one North Carolina county took on ICE along with local anti-immigrant groups—and won the battle.
For the last five years, the countries of the Mercosur economic bloc have been riding a wave of economic growth mostly thanks to high commodity prices. During the boom, some countries of the bloc began efforts to reduce their dependence on U.S. financial markets with those windfall profits. Those initial efforts were good but insufficient. Still, the Mercosur countries have options available to help them weather the storm—if they move fast.
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At the end of his six-month tour at the U.S. detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Matthew Diaz made a decision that would change his life—and possibly that of hundreds of prisoners held in the Pentagon's legal vacuum. In return, Diaz was fired, jailed, and had his legal license suspended. Since blowing the whistle on the illegal detainment of so-called "enemy combatants," Diaz's life has been a daily struggle.