This week’s reporting examines how decisions made in Washington and across Central America are reshaping political landscapes already marked by impunity, forced migration, and authoritarian expansion. At the center is the U.S. presidential pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández—a move that reverberates far beyond a courtroom, directly influencing Honduras’s electoral trajectory and reigniting questions about the United States’ role in the region’s governance crises.

While Hernández’s pardon attempts to rewrite the political narrative, the facts remain unchanged: he was convicted in a U.S. federal court for drug trafficking. The distinction between pardon and innocence is not semantic—it is political. And it casts a long shadow over Hondurans preparing to vote, including those living in exile. For thousands of families straddling Nicaraguan and Honduran identities, participating in elections becomes both an act of civic duty and a confrontation with the very forces that displaced them.