U.S. to send asylum seekers to Honduras, bypassing asylum
The U.S. is preparing to send asylum-seekers to Honduras who are not from the Central American country, effectively ending their chances of seeking asylum in the United States, according to documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Under an agreement signed in New York on Sept. 25 by Kevin McAleenan, at the time the secretary of Homeland Security, and Honduras’ foreign minister, Maria Dolores Aguero, adults and families seeking asylum at the U.S.Mexico border could be sent to Honduras without the opportunity of seeking asylum in the U.S.
A source provided a copy of the agreement to the Times. A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
The Trump administration has reached similar agreements with El Salvador and Guatemala, obligating them to take other Central Americans who reach the U.S. border. The administration described the agreements as an “effort to share the distribution of hundreds of thousands of asylum claims.”
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stricter limits on immigration, called the latest agreement “pretty significant.”
“It’s an important part of a broad effort to return asylum to the narrow use for which it was intended,” he said.
Advocates for immigrants have condemned the agreements, saying they make it nearly impossible for Central Americans to seek asylum in the U.S.
“The administration is seeking to end asylum at the southern border,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit group that opposed the Trump administration’s highly restrictive policies.
Reichlin-Melnick says he fears the administration will use the latest agreement to start sending Guatemalan asylumseekers to Honduras as soon as next month.
The agreements were signed after the Trump administration announced a new rule in July deeming ineligible for protection in the U.S. virtually any migrant who passes through another country before reaching the U.S.-Mexico border and does not seek asylum there first. That rule currently faces legal challenges.
The new policies are part of a broader effort to effectively end asylum at the southern U.S. border by requiring asylum-seekers to claim protection elsewhere.
It’s not clear when the agreement with El Salvador will be implemented. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele told “60 Minutes” last weekend that the agreement “has a lot of ifs.”
“These countries have to be a lot safer,” Bukele said, adding, “We don’t have asylum capacities, but we can build them.”
The administration reached a similar agreement with Guatemala to take asylum-seekers arriving at the U.S. border who were not Guatemalan. Since late November, U.S. officials have forcibly returned a number of adults to Guatemala under the deal. Last week, they began applying the policy to nonGuatemalan parents and children, according to communications obtained by the Times and several U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials.
The Honduras agreement allows the U.S. to return Central American migrants from other countries there. The Guatemalan agreement did not allow Guatemalans to be returned there, nor did it allow any asylum-seekers to be returned to Honduras.
The agreement with Guatemala is primarily aimed at preventing migrants from El Salvador and Honduras from reaching the United States and requires those who travel through Guatemala to seek asylum there first.