An emerging strategy of ‘information matchmaking’ is being developed by experienced whistleblower advocates. This operates on the principle that an effective legal campaign needs a PR campaign running alongside it, in public whistleblowing cases. Information matchmaking involves advocates connecting whistleblowers with suitable partners: subject-expert journalists, activists, lawyers, academics, political figures – and any other party whose interests align with the information coming to light. If successful, the outcome is twofold: the whistleblowing disclosure reaches its intended audience and the wrongdoing is stopped, while the public whistleblower benefits from the personal and professional support of a chain of campaigners all committed to a common cause. The experiences of Dawn Wooten, a nurse at a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centre in Georgia, illustrates. Dawn spoke up about forced sterilization of immigrant women, along with insufficient protections against the first waves of COVID-19. Her case demonstrates how effective whistleblower advocacy demands significant empathy and care on the part of the advocate, as well as persistence and tactical skills. But these campaigns come with challenges. The landscape is often uncertain for people who disclose. And inequality among whistleblowers amplifies the uncertainty.

In the first half of the twentieth century, Latin America was a region of immigration, where people moved from one country to another and/or people came from other continents, mostly from Europe. But by the 1960s, when many Latin American countries were suffering economic downturns, and the 1970s and 1980s, when state repression intensified, immigration turned to emigration, and many began making their way to the United States. Today, Latin Americans continue to migrate to the United States; people from all over the globe migrate to Latin America; and people move within the region. It is one of the most complex challenges confronting the United States and Latin America, and remains a very divisive issue in most countries of the region, especially the United States. This chapter looks at the push and pull factors that lead people to move from their home countries to resettle elsewhere.