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GUATEMALA CITY -- Guatemala and Honduras person signed agreements with the United States to perchance connection refuge to radical from different countries who different would question asylum successful the United States, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday astatine the decision of her Central America trip.
The agreements grow the Trump administration’s efforts to supply the U.S. authorities flexibility successful returning migrants not lone to their ain countries, but besides to 3rd countries arsenic it attempts to ramp up deportations.
Noem described it arsenic a mode to connection asylum-seekers options different than coming to the United States. She said the agreements had been successful the works for months. with the U.S. authorities applying unit connected Honduras and Guatemala to get them done.
“Honduras and present Guatemala aft contiguous volition beryllium countries that volition instrumentality those individuals and springiness them exile presumption arsenic well,” Noem said. “We’ve ne'er believed that the United States should beryllium the lone option, that the warrant for a exile is that they spell determination to beryllium harmless and to beryllium protected from immoderate menace they look successful their country. It doesn’t needfully person to beryllium the United States.”
Both governments denied having signed 3rd harmless state agreements erstwhile asked pursuing Noem's comments.
Guatemala's statesmanlike communications bureau said the authorities did not motion a harmless 3rd state statement nor immoderate migration related statement during Noem's visit.
They reaffirmed that Guatemala would person Central Americans sent by the United States arsenic a impermanent halt connected the instrumentality to their countries.
Noem had said Thursday that “politically, this is simply a hard statement for their governments to do.”
Both countries person constricted resources and galore needs making enactment for asylum seekers from different countries a tougher merchantability domestically. There are besides the optics of 2 left-of-center governments appearing to assistance the Trump medication bounds entree to U.S. asylum.
Noem said that during her Guatemala meeting, she was fixed the already signed agreement. While aboriginal determination was a nationalist signing ceremonial for a memorandum of knowing that establishes a Joint Security Program that volition enactment U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers successful the Guatemalan capital's planetary airdrome to assistance bid section agents to surface for violent suspects.
Honduras' migration manager Wilson Paz denied specified an statement was signed and its Foreign Affairs Ministry did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.
During U.S. President Donald Trump’s archetypal term, the U.S. signed specified accords called safe-third state agreements with Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. They efficaciously allowed the U.S. to state immoderate asylum seekers ineligible to use for U.S. extortion and permitted the U.S. authorities to nonstop them to those countries deemed “safe.”
The U.S. has had specified an statement with Canada since 2002.
The applicable situation was that each 3 Central American countries astatine the clip were seeing ample numbers of their ain citizens caput to the U.S. to flight unit and a deficiency of economical opportunity. They besides had highly under-resourced asylum systems.
In February, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed deals with El Salvador and Guatemala that allowed the U.S. to nonstop migrants from different nations there. But successful Guatemala’s lawsuit it was to lone beryllium a constituent of transit for migrants who would past instrumentality to their homelands, not to use for asylum there. And successful El Salvador, it was broader, allowing the U.S. to nonstop migrants to beryllium imprisoned there.
Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said Tuesday that Mexico would not motion a 3rd harmless state agreement, but astatine the aforesaid clip Mexico has accepted much than 5,000 migrants from different countries deported from the U.S. since Trump took office. She said Mexico accepted them for humanitarian reasons and helped them instrumentality to their location countries.
The U.S. besides has agreements with Panama and Costa Rica to instrumentality migrants from different countries though truthful acold the numbers sent person been comparatively small. The Trump medication sent 299 to Panama successful February and less than 200 to Costa Rica.
The agreements springiness U.S. authorities options, particularly for migrants from countries wherever it is not casual for the U.S. to instrumentality them directly.
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Sherman reported from Mexico City.
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