Trump, Guatemala sign deal to limit asylum claims in US

Bloomberg

The US reached a deal with Guatemala to stop migrants from other parts of Central America from claiming asylum in the US, President Donald Trump said, and will instead force them to file a claim in Guatemala, a nation that one refugee advocacy group said is neither safe nor able to handle the task.
Trump told reporters during a surprise event at the White House that Guatemala would sign a “safe-third-country” agreement requiring migrants from nearby nations, such as Honduras and
El Salvador, to claim asylum in Guatemala instead of continuing to the US border. Trump had earlier accused Guatemala of backing out of a deal.
“We are doing a very important signing, it’s a historic asylum or safe-third-country agreement between our two countries,” Trump said. “This landmark agreement will put the coyotes and the smugglers out of business.”
The agreement comes as the Trump administration is seeking to crack down on migrants crossing into the US along the border with Mexico, one of the president’s 2020 campaign themes. Apprehensions by authorities at the US southern border dropped from more than 130,000 — the highest monthly figure since at least 2011 — in May to less than 95,000 in June as the administration ramped up efforts to stem flows of migrants to the US. Advocacy group Refugees International called the agreement “very alarming.”

‘No Way Safe’
“Guatemala is in no way safe for refugees and asylum seekers, and all the strong-arming in the world won’t make it so,” said Eric Schwartz, president of the advocacy group. “This agreement also violates US law and will put some of the most vulnerable people in Central America in grave danger.”
Acting US Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said that the deal means that asylum claimants from Honduras and El Salvador, who have to pass through Guatemala to reach Mexico and then the US, now must file a claim in Guatemala — essentially, saying the US considers Guatemala a safe country, even as thousands flee its borders as well.
“This is a return to the appropriate approach under international law to protecting asylum seekers at the earliest possible point in their journey,” he said. “They can make a protection claim if they would like in Guatemala. If they arrive in the US not having availed themselves of that opportunity, they’ll be returned to Guatemala.”
For 2017, the US received 331,700 new asylum claims, the most worldwide and nearly double the number from 2015, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, of whom 35,300 were Guatemalans.
Guatemala, one of the region’s poorest countries with a murder rate four times that of the US, received just 262 applications for asylum between January and November of 2018, a 75 percent increase from the same period of 2017.