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After Tariff Threat, Trump Says Guatemala Has Agreed to New Asylum Rules After Tariff Threat, Trump Says Guatemala Has Agreed to New Asylum Rules
(about 4 hours later)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has signed an agreement with Guatemala to require migrants who travel through that country to seek asylum there instead of in the United States, President Trump announced Friday. WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday again sought to block migrants from Central America from seeking asylum, announcing an agreement with Guatemala to require people who travel through that country to seek refuge from persecution there instead of in the United States.
American officials had been pushing for the agreement as a way to slow the flow of migrants from Central America who have streamed across the Mexican border and into the United States in recent months. This week, Mr. Trump had threatened to impose tariffs on Guatemala, or to ban all travel from the country, if the agreement was not signed. American officials said the agreement could go into effect within weeks, though critics vowed to challenge it in court, saying that Guatemala is itself one of the most dangerous countries in the world — hardly a place of refuge for those fleeing gangs and government violence.
In the Oval Office on Friday, Mr. Trump said the agreement would “put coyotes and the smugglers out of business.” Mr. Trump had been pushing for a way to slow the flow of migrants streaming across the Mexican border and into the United States in recent months. This week, the president had threatened to impose tariffs on Guatemala or to ban all travel from the country if the agreement were not signed.
“These are bad people,” Mr. Trump said in a signing ceremony with Enrique Degenhart, Guatemala’s minister of interior and foreign affairs. Joined in the Oval Office by Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart of Guatemala, Mr. Trump said the agreement would end what he has described as a crisis at the border, which has been overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of families fleeing violence and persecution in El Salvador and Honduras.
The accord, known as “safe third,” would affect migrants who flee countries like El Salvador and Honduras seeking refuge from danger. “These are bad people,” Mr. Trump told reporters after a previously unannounced signing ceremony. He said the agreement would “end widespread abuse of the system and the crippling crisis on our border.”
Under the agreement, asylum seekers from those countries who arrive at the United States border will be turned away if they traveled through Guatemala on their way north. Instead of being returned home, however, they would be sent back to Guatemala, which under the agreement would be designated as a safe country for those migrants to live. Officials did not release the text of the agreement or provide many details about how it would be put into practice along the United States border with Mexico. Mr. Trump announced the deal in a Friday afternoon tweet that took Guatemalan politicians and officials at immigration advocacy groups by surprise.
Critics of such policies say Guatemala is itself one of the most dangerous countries in the world and is hardly a place of refuge for those fleeing gangs and government violence. Kevin K. McAleenan, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, described the document signed by the two countries as a “safe-third” agreement that would make migrants ineligible for protection in the United States if they traveled through Guatemala on their way north and did not first apply for asylum there.
“Guatemala is in no way safe for refugees and asylum seekers, and all the strong-arming in the world won’t make it so,” Eric Schwartz, president of Refugees International, said in a statement. Instead of being returned home, however, they would be sent back to Guatemala, which under the agreement would be designated as a safe place for those migrants to live.
He said it was unclear how the new agreement would be enforced, given the legal challenges it faces in Guatemala. “But the president’s statements on this are of the deepest concern,” Mr. Schwartz said. “Such an arrangement would make a mockery of the notion that those fleeing persecution in Central America have any recourse.” “They would be removable, back to Guatemala, if they want to seek an asylum claim,” said Mr. McAleenan, who likened the agreement to similar arrangements in Europe.
Negotiations between diplomats for the United States and Guatemala broke down in the past two weeks, after Guatemala’s Constitutional Court ruled that President Jimmy Morales could not sign the agreement until the legal challenges were resolved. The move was the latest in a series of attempts by Mr. Trump to severely limit the ability of refugees to win protection in the United States. A new regulation that would have also banned most asylum seekers was blocked by a judge in San Francisco earlier this week.
But the Trump administration is determined to do everything it can to stop the flow of migrants at the border, which has infuriated the president. Mr. Trump has frequently told his advisers that he sees the border situation as evidence of a failure to make good on his campaign promise to seal the border from dangerous immigrants.
More than 144,200 migrants were taken into custody at the southwest border in May, the highest monthly total in 13 years. Arrests at the border declined by 28 percent in June after efforts in Mexico and the United States to stop migrants from Central America.
The Guatemalan government referred to only opaque details about the agreement on Friday, saying in a statement that it had signed a “cooperation agreement regarding the study of requests for asylum.” The statement referred to an implementation plan for Salvadorans and Hondurans.
By avoiding any mention of a “safe third country” agreement, President Jimmy Morales of Guatemala appeared to be trying to sidestep a recent court ruling blocking him from signing an agreement with the United States without the approval of his country’s congress.
Mr. Morales will leave office in January. One of the candidates running to replace him, conservative Alejandro Giammattei, said that it was “irresponsible” for Mr. Morales to have agreed to an accord without revealing its contents first.
“It is up to the next government to attend to this negotiation,” Mr. Giammattei wrote on Twitter. His opponent, Sandra Torres, had opposed any third safe country agreement when it first appeared that Mr. Morales was preparing to sign one.
Legal groups in the United States said the immediate impact of the agreement will not be clear until the administration releases more details. But based on the descriptions of the agreement, they vowed to ask a judge to block it from going into effect.
“Guatemala can neither offer a safe nor fair and full process, and nobody could plausibly argue otherwise,” said Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued against other recent efforts to limit asylum. “There’s no way they have the capacity to provide a full and fair procedure, much less a safe one.”
American asylum laws require that virtually all migrants who arrive at the border must be allowed to seek refuge in the United States, but the law allows the government to quickly deport migrants to a country that has signed a “safe third” agreement.
But critics said that the law clearly requires the “safe third” country to be a truly safe place where migrants will not be in danger. And it requires that the country have the ability to provide a “full and fair” system of protections that can accommodate asylum seekers who are sent there. Critics insisted that Guatemala meets neither requirement.
They also noted that the State Department’s own country condition reports on Guatemala warn about rampant gang activity and say that murder is common in the country, which has a police force that is often ineffective at best.
Asked whether Guatemala is a safe country for refugees, Mr. McAleenan said it was unfair to tar an entire country as unsafe, noting that there are also places in the United States which are not safe.
In 2018, the most recent data available, 116,808 migrants apprehended at the border were from Guatemala, while 77,128 were from Honduras and 31,636 were from El Salvador.
“It’s legally ludicrous and totally dangerous,” said Eleanor Acer, the senior director for refugee protection at Human Rights First. “The United States is trying to send people back to a country where their lives would be at risk. It sets a terrible example for the rest of the world.”
Administration officials had traveled to Guatemala in recent months, pushing officials there to sign the agreement, according to an administration official. But negotiations broke down in the past two weeks after Guatemala’s Constitutional Court ruled that Mr. Morales could not sign the agreement with the United States until legal challenges in that country had been resolved.
The ruling led Mr. Morales to cancel a planned trip in mid-July to sign the agreement, leaving Mr. Trump fuming.The ruling led Mr. Morales to cancel a planned trip in mid-July to sign the agreement, leaving Mr. Trump fuming.
“Guatemala, which has been forming Caravans and sending large numbers of people, some with criminal records, to the United States, has decided to break the deal they had with us on signing a necessary Safe Third Agreement,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on July 23. “Now we are looking at the BAN, Tariffs, Remittance Fees, or all of the above,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on July 23.
“Now we are looking at the BAN, Tariffs, Remittance Fees, or all of the above,” the president tweeted. Friday’s action appears to suggest that the threats — which provoked concern among Guatemala’s business community about the effect of tariffs — were effective.
Friday’s action appears to suggest that the threats — which provoked concern among Guatemala’s business community about the effect of tariffs — worked.
It was unclear how Mr. Morales intended to carry out the agreement, given the Guatemalan court ruling. Officials said the Guatemalan legislature must also approve the migration agreement with the United States before it can go into effect.
The White House announced the signing of the agreement in a tweet: “The United States and Guatemala have reached an agreement on asylum. The agreement was just signed in the Oval Office.”
Legal groups in the United States have said in the past that they also intend to challenge the legality of such an agreement. Critics also say that Guatemala has very little capacity to provide refuge for the tens of thousands of migrants from other Central American countries who could be turned back under the new agreement.