The Joe Biden administration has begun to end the so-called Asylum Cooperation Agreements (ACA) signed in the Trump years with El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, which allowed for the deportation of asylum seekers to these countries. This was announced on Saturday by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, which is a first step to undo the changes to the asylum system made by the Trump administration.
“In line with the President’s vision, we have communicated to the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras that the United States is taking this action as it begins efforts to establish a cooperative and mutually respectful approach to managing migration in the region, “said Blinken. in a statement.
The ACAs, signed in 2019 with the three Central American countries, require people seeking asylum in the United States to first apply for protection in one of those countries. As part of the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the number of people who can seek asylum in the United States, the agreements allowed US authorities to deport applicants back to those countries from which hundreds of thousands of people were displaced.
The agreements with El Salvador and Honduras had not yet been implemented, according to the State Department, while the agreement with Guatemala entered into force, but deportations under his protection had stopped since March 2020 due to the pandemic. Until then, under the said agreement, also referred to as a “safe third country”, some 700 Hondurans and Salvadorans were deported from the United States to Guatemala.
“These actions do not mean that the US border is open,” warns Blinken. But the new government, the Secretary of State explains, believes there are “more appropriate ways of working” with these countries. On immigration policy, this week President Biden expressed his willingness to address the “ root causes ” of Central American migration, arguing that Trump’s efforts to build a wall on the border do little in practice. or has no effectiveness, have produced good results in the causes that lead people who emigrate to be neglected