The United States planned to sign an agreement on Friday to help make one of Central America’s most violent countries, El Salvador, a haven for migrants seeking asylum, according to a senior Trump administration official.
The official said acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan would sign a “cooperative asylum agreement.”
Two other officials described the agreement as a first step measure in the governments’ working together on asylum. Details of the broad agreement will be hammered out in the weeks and months ahead, they said. The officials weren’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The agreement could lead to migrants from third countries obtaining refuge in El Salvador even though many Salvadorans are fleeing their nation and seeking asylum in the United States. A Salvadoran delegation has been in the U.S. this week discussing the matter.
It’s the latest effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to force asylum-seekers in Central America to seek refuge outside the United States. Immigration officials also are forcing more than 42,000 people to remain in Mexico as their cases play out and have changed policy to deny asylum to anyone who transited through a third country en route to the southern border of the U.S.
The senior administration official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
The agreement would be another step by the Trump administration aimed at stopping the flow of migrants coming into the United States. McAleenan also signed a so-called “safe third country” agreement with Guatemala, but officials in that country are still working out how it would be implemented.
The arrangement with El Salvador was not described as a “safe third country” agreement, under which nations agree that their respective countries are safe enough and have robust enough asylum systems, so that if migrants transit through one of the countries they must remain there instead of moving on to another country.
The U.S. officially has only one such agreement in place, with Canada, but has been working toward others in Honduras and agreed to the one in Guatemala that has not yet been implemented.
The courts have made it clear that without a safe third country agreement, the Trump regime can't begin mass deportations of millions out of the US. Canada is big enough to not get pushed around by the US too, and besides, it's pretty easy to check to see if people came in through the southern US border or the northern one.
Honduras is the next country in line if Guatemala and El Salvador don't work out. But the Trump regime can't begin the deportations without somewhere to actually send them, and the for-profit concentration camps on the US border will start becoming an albatross on Trump's neck for 2020 unless he proves he can empty them out.
Besides, his base will demand the deportations sooner rather than later.
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