July 31, 2019

U.S. gov’t signs draconian asylum agreement with Guatemala

topic:	Humans
located:	USA, Guatemala
editor:	Yair Oded

On July 26, the Trump administration signed a safe third country agreement with Guatemala, which officially requires migrants from El Salvador and Honduras to apply for asylum in Guatemala and be rejected before they can lodge asylum requests in the U.S. This deal constitutes the latest step in the administration’s campaign to render the asylum mechanism in the U.S. as inaccessible as possible, particularly for Central American migrants.  

According to the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, asylum seekers may only be removed to a third country if it can guarantee their safety, and grant them “access to a full and fair procedure for determining a claim to asylum”. Based on these criteria, Guatemala cannot be deemed a safe third country by any stretch of the imagination. 

The U.S. State Department’s own report from 2019 classifies Guatemala as “one of the most dangerous countries in the world”, owing to its alarming murder rate, gang and gender-based violence, and organised crime. Since the beginning of the year, Guatemala produced more asylum seekers fleeing for their lives than any other country in the region.

Furthermore, Guatemala’s asylum mechanism is practically nonexistent as a result of both systemic inadequacies and a negligible volume of requests. Quoting the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the State Department’s 2018 Human Rights report on Guatemala states that UNHCR, “reported that identification and referral mechanisms for potential asylum seekers were inadequate. Both migration and police authorities lacked adequate training concerning the rules for establishing refugee status”.

As part of the bilateral agreement, 89 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will be deployed to Guatemala and act as "advisers" in order to help secure the country's porous border and stem the flow of migrants heading north. 

The agreement between the two countries was signed despite pressure from within Guatemala, with the country’s Constitutional Court ruling just days before the signing that safe third country agreements necessitate approval by the legislative branch. In order to circumvent the courts, Guatemala President Jimmy Morales presented the deal not as a safe third country but rather a “Cooperation Agreement” with the U.S.

On the surface, it may seem that Morales had no choice but to cave to Trump’s demands, as the latter openly threatened to slap Guatemala with hefty tariffs on their exports, a ban on the entry of its nationals into the U.S., and a series of other harsh punitive measures. But while it is true that Guatemala, who exports 40 percent of its produce to the United States, cannot afford to deal with economic sanctions, it appears that Morales, who is ensnared in allegations of corruption, had an actual vested interest in entering this agreement. In exchange for Guatemala’s help with stemming the flow of migrants into the U.S., the Trump administration tacitly acquiesces to the Guatemalan president’s quashing of dissent and purging of any official or judge attempting to crack down on corruption or unearth the atrocities committed by the Guatemalan authorities against its own people (atrocities that were abetted and supported by the U.S. government). Among these efforts is an attempt to seal off access to national war archives, which are being used to implicate Guatemalan officials in war crimes and lead to their prosecution. 

By turning a blind eye to Morales' tyranny and corruption, the U.S. encourages the Guatemalan political and military elites to further erode the country's democratic institutions, disregard international scrutiny, and undo the progress of the past 20 years. In a bitter sort of irony, this would only exacerbate poverty and violence and hence increase migration out of the region.

And thus, the cycle of relentless corruption, totalitarianism, and hypocrisy continues as the United States brushes off its involvement in destabilising regions across the globe and, concerned with its own interests, ignores the damage caused in its wake and moves to empower autocratic regimes – all at the expense of the most vulnerable of populations.

The agreement is expected to be challenged by both Guatemalan lawmakers and Democratic congress members in the U.S.