Human Rights Watch on March 13 criticized the proposed European Union "Returns Regulation" for undocumented migrants as "cruel and unrealistic" for allowing longer detention and harsher treatment.

The European Commission seeks to establish standardized procedures so that returns of migrants can be more efficient while still respecting fundamental human rights. The proposed rule provides mandatory forced return if the undocumented migrant does not cooperate with an EU member state in the return procedure. Additionally, individuals deemed security risks could be detained for more than 24 months with judicial authorization.

A UN report released on March 5 found that armed groups operating in the Haut Oubangui region of the Central African Republic (CAR) have been carrying out attacks against Muslim communities and Sudanese refugees, resulting in grave human rights violations. The report, prepared jointly by the UN Human Rights Office and the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), mainly attributes these attacks to Wagner Ti Azande (WTA), a militia affiliated with the national army.

President Donald Trump announced on Feb. 27 that the US government is revoking a special permit granted to energy giant Chevron to pump and export Venezuelan oil. The move, which reverses a 2022 decision by Biden to allow the company to bring Venezuelan oil to US markets by exempting it from economic sanctions, removes one of the South American country's few economic lifelines at a time of deepening crisis. In his post on TruthSocial, Trump claimed that the Venezuelan government had failed to keep up its side of the original bargain to meet "electoral conditions." He also charged that the "regime has not been transporting the violent criminals they sent into our Country...back to Venezuela at the rapid pace that they had agreed to." (NACLA Update)

An eight-year-old Venezuelan girl died and 20 survivors were rescued by Panamanian authorities from a Feb. 21 shipwreck during a journey from Panama's northern port of Llano Carti to the Colombian border.

After detaining them in squalid short-term holding facilities for more than a decade, Thailand deported 40 Uyghur asylum seekers to China on Feb. 27. Human rights groups had been urging the Thai government for over a month to halt any plans to deport the group—though senior officials denied there were any such plans. The removals were carried out in a pre-dawn operation using trucks with blacked-out windows, flanked by police. The Chinese embassy in Bangkok described the men as "illegal immigrants" and said they would "return to normal life." But rights groups, as well as relatives of the asylum seekers living abroad, worry that the group will remain detained in China—or be sentenced to death. China has previously labelled anyone seeking asylum abroad as a "terrorist." The UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, said the deportations were "a clear violation of the principle of non-refoulement" and international law.

The Malian Armed Forces command has refuted accusations that soldiers were responsible for an attack that took place on Feb. 17, in which 24 civilians including women and children were killed. The armed forces denied any involvement in the massacre, which is said to have occurred in Tilemsi commune, Gao region. Press reports indicate a caravan of vehicles carrying migrants across the desert was targeted in the attack, which was carried out jointly with Russian mercenaries.

Mexico has launched a massive deployment of 10,000 troops to cities and towns on the border with the United States. Videos and photos posted on social media by Mexico's Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA) showed military and National Guard troops lined up boarding transport planes and rows of army trucks rolling out in the predawn darkness Feb. 4 from bases in Mexico City, Tlaxcala and other cities. Large contingents were also mobilized to Mexico's southern border in the Yucatan. The response—dubbed "Operativo Frontera Norte"—is part of an agreement reached the previous day between US President Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum postponing trade tariff threats for a month. (El Paso Times, Peninsula360)

In Episode 263 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg deconstructs the moves by the unconstitutional Trump regime to consolidate a dictatorship over the United States—attempting to seize autocratic control over the bureaucracy, and (in a case of fascist pseudo-anti-fascism) weaponizing concern with anti-Semitism to suppress free speech while institutionalizing indifference to (and consciously enflaming) all other forms of racism. And this as Elon Musk (a private-sector oligarch given extra-legal power over government functions) tells a rally of the Nazi-adjacent Alternative für Deutschland that Germany has "too much of a focus on past guilt." It took Hitler mere weeks to establish a dictatorship after coming to power, whereas with Mussolini it took some three years. We shall soon find out how long it will take in the United States—unless the country can find the wherewithal to resist.