Latin America: Week in Review, United States
Miami Student Daniela Pelaez Discusses Deportation, DREAM Act
March 5, 2012 By Staff
Today in Latin America
Top Story— Daniela Pelaez, an 18 year-old undocumented immigrant living in Miami, said she was “overwhelmed” by support from thousands of people who protested her deportation order on Friday. Pelaez, a top student at North Miami Senior High and a native of Colombia, entered the U.S. at age four on a tourist visa. Pelaez captivated the public and Florida politicians after her request for relief from deportation was denied last Monday and over 2,000 people protested in North Miami on Friday. Over the weekend, Pelaez appeared on local TV and Univisión’s popular variety show, Sábado Gigante, advocating for undocumented students who could gain a path to U.S. citizenship through the DREAM Act. Pelaez is scheduled to be deported on March 28, but her attorney plans an appeal. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Nestor Yglesias said Friday that “ICE will review this matter to determine whether an exercise of discretion is warranted,” referring to the Obama administration’s new policy of prioritizing the deportation of those with criminal records and multiple illegal entries to the U.S.
Read more from the Miami Herald.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- U.S. Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Latin America on Sunday to meet with the Mexican, Honduran, Guatemalan, Costa Rican, Panamanian and Salvadoran presidents.
- BP reached a $7.8 billion settlement for victims of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill at the Deepwater Horizon rig.
Caribbean
- Haitian President Michel Martelly on Thursday officially selected Foreign Minister Laurent Lamothe to serve as Haiti’s new Prime Minister.
- Nearly 750 Cuban dissidents signed a letter asking Pope Benedict XVI to reconsider his upcoming visit to Cuba.
- Haitian President Michel Martelly asked the government to clear camps of displaced former Haitian military members.
- Twenty-six year-old baseball player Yoenis Cespedes, who defected from his native Cuba, worked out with the Oakland A’s for the first time on Sunday.
Central America
- Nelson Avila-Lopez, an inmate mistakenly deported from Los Angeles in October, was one of the 360 Honduran inmates to die in last month’s deadly prison fire.
- Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina said he would send a helicopter to assist Costa Rica as it battles a forest fire in the Chirripó National Park that has been burning for nearly a week.
- Prince Harry traveled to Belize on Friday as part of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee tour.
Andes
- Peruvian police detained Walter Diaz Vega, also known as “Freddy” or “Percy,” and is suspected of assuming leadership of the Shining Path guerrillas after the capture of “Comrade Artemio”.
- Colombians Sgt. Luis Alfonso Beltran and Sgt. Luis Arturo Arcia, the FARC’s longest-held captives, are eagerly awaiting their expected release after 14 years as hostages.
- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez will need additional radiation treatments after he revealed that a tumor removed in Cuba last week was cancerous.
Southern Cone
- Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was admitted to the hospital Sunday for a lung infection after undergoing radiation for larynx cancer two weeks ago.
- The Brazilian sports minister said Brazil would cut ties with FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke after he criticized Brazil for being unprepared for the 2014 World Cup.
- Residents of the Falkland Islands are skeptical about Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s offer to begin flights between Buenos Aires and the islands.
- An ice dam at Argentina’s Perito Moreno glacier collapsed Sunday at four in the morning.
Image: Todd Dwyer @ Flickr.
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