Asylum Seekers Agreement

A separate rule from the Trump administration prevents migrants from receiving asylum if they have passed through a country other than their own before arriving in the United States, effectively meaning that asylum seekers from any country except Mexico are not eligible for asylum. (Some migrants are still eligible for other protections that would allow them to stay in the U.S. under this rule.) In the past, two countries have negotiated agreements on “safe third countries” to better manage the flow of refugee and asylum claims at their borders. This agreement is signed on the assumption that both countries can offer asylum to people in need. This is not the case in the Trump administration`s agreements with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Since 2017, the federal government has launched relentless attacks on the U.S. asylum system and on people seeking safety within our borders. Internal memos have shown that these efforts are concerted, organized, and implemented to achieve the goal of ending asylum in the United States. Guatemala as a “safe third country”: The Trump administration has struck a “safe third country” agreement with Guatemala that would require asylum seekers traveling through Guatemala to the United States to first seek asylum in Guatemala. Experts warn that the agreements have deadly consequences for migrants who are returned. In March 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) closed the U.S.

border due to an outcry from public health experts; These experts included senior CDC officials, who were eventually heavily armed by Vice President Pence and Stephen Miller. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) deported more than 200,000 migrants and asylum seekers at the border, including more than 13,000 children, some of whom were arbitrarily sent to Mexico when they had no roots or caregivers there. The US judicial system will therefore be the ultimate arbiter in determining whether the Trump administration`s attempts to negotiate agreements with third countries are legitimate. Agreement with Honduras: In a series of agreements with the Honduran government, the Trump administration has sought to curb migration from the region to the United States. In an agreement similar to those signed by the governments of Guatemala and El Salvador, the United States could return asylum seekers to Honduras if they cross the country without first seeking asylum. The question was whether the Safe Third Country Agreement (CTFA), a pact signed in 2002 under which refugee claimants attempting to cross official borders between Canada and the United States are surrendered and removed, violates a claimant`s fundamental rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it was working to resume the program “as soon as possible,” but that it could not do so without Mexico`s consent. Agreements with Central American countries tactically move the U.S. border further south. The Axios news agency had previously reported that return under the program officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP) could resume as early as next week.

But one of Mexico`s officials said it was unlikely that a deal would be reached this week. Since safe third country agreements are not considered treaties that need to be ratified by Congress, the president can sign them unilaterally. This policy prevents most migrants caught crossing the border without even giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum. The Trump administration on Wednesday began deporting migrants seeking protection at the southern border to Guatemala, the first migrants returned under a series of deals negotiated earlier this year that make it nearly impossible for Central Americans to seek asylum in the United States. Trump has seen a growing number of border arrests that are widely seen as proxies of the scale of unauthorized immigration, a crisis worth declaring a national emergency in February. He identified the safe third country agreements as one of the many measures he is pursuing to reduce the number of votes. Refugee law would also likely be addressed in all challenges for future safe third country agreements with Mexico or other countries. A new rule to implement the agreements was published this week. Only the agreement with Guatemala has gone into effect so far, as BuzzFeed first reported, and so far it has affected a relatively small number of single adult migrants, although the government has not released an official tally.

But the agreements represent an unprecedented break with the U.S. tradition of protecting vulnerable populations, all in support of President Donald Trump`s goal of reducing the number of migrants seeking refuge at the U.S. southern border. An agreement with El Salvador: The government of El Salvador has agreed to accept asylum seekers returned from the United States. Under the agreement, any asylum seeker who is not a citizen of El Salvador could be returned to El Salvador and forced to apply for asylum there. The agreement with El Salvador, which is similar to the one with Guatemala, states that the United States “intends to work with El Salvador to strengthen El Salvador`s institutional capacity.” In this context, the United States will invest in El Salvador and work on a way to allow about 200,000 Salvadorans who have lived in the United States for about two decades with temporary legal immigration status to stay in the country permanently, the State Department Chancellor of McAleenan and El Salvador told reporters. Alexandra Hill. Last year, a federal court ruled that the deal violated asylum seekers` right to life, liberty and security of the person, as those who were rejected could be locked up in immigration detention indefinitely. Guatemala`s Constitutional Court initially prevented the agreement from entering into force.

After the decision, Trump suggested he would retaliate by blocking all Guatemalan immigrants and introducing a new tax on their remittances. The agreement has now been implemented. The Refugee Act states that any non-citizen can seek asylum in the United States, “whether at a specific port of arrival or not” and “regardless of [immigration] status.” The only exceptions apply to those who were “permanently relocated” to another country before arriving in the United States or if they passed through another country with which the United States had a “safe third country” agreement. The European Union also struck a similar deal with Turkey in March 2016 after record numbers of migrants, most of them from the Middle East and Africa, including Syrians displaced by the ongoing civil war, arrived at a record high – more than a million in 2015, according to the International Organization for Migration. The deal allowed Greece to deport migrants who had traveled through Turkey unless they had already applied for asylum in Greece. (Few deportations took place, however, because the migrants sought asylum immediately upon arrival in Greece.) The deal could be a violation of U.S. refugee protection laws. In addition, Guatemala cannot be classified as a “safe third country” due to a lack of infrastructure to help large numbers of refugees. The United States has confirmed its intention to send Mexican asylum seekers to Guatemala, although the outgoing Guatemalan government denies agreeing to accept Mexican asylum seekers. The Trump administration is methodically dismantling the United States…