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InAlienable
Daily Dispatch
September 27, 2019
The Trump administration hates the fact that the U.S. extends asylum to people fleeing violence and oppression in other parts of the world. He has characterized the people seeking asylum as collectively, a bunch of liars trying to game the system and has used executive actions to gut the asylum system completely. The latest news is that Honduras, one of the most violent countries in the world and with a president under investigation for drug trafficking, has signed an agreement that will allow the U.S. to send asylum seekers there. The Honduras agreement is part of a series of accords the U.S. has also established with Guatemala and El Salvador, and is seeking with Mexico, as the U.S. tries outsourcing immigration policy. From Alianza Americas:
Since Trump took office 32 months ago, the demonization of migrants and asylum-seekers has become a center-point of its policy agenda, driving an onslaught of measures to block people from requesting asylum, increase detentions, cancel humanitarian protections, and raid the federal budget to fund a border wall. A number of these efforts have been blocked by lower courts, but others have moved forward, such as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which forces asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their asylum case is considered in the US. A new rule requires that asylum seekers attempting to cross at the southern border apply for protection in a country in transit to the United States, and for that application to be denied, before becoming eligible to apply for refuge in the U.S.
The administration’s argument is that if people are scared for their lives in one country, they should be willing to seek asylum in the first country they come to - regardless of the conditions in that country. Accordingly, the United States will not process asylum claims at the U.S./Mexico border unless people have first sought asylum and been denied in other countries they have passed through. This means that no one can file for asylum at the U.S./Mexico border unless they have first filed for asylum in Mexico and been denied, or they are from Mexico. With the new agreements, this extends further south. So, if you are from Nicaragua you need to apply for asylum in Honduras or El Salvador, before you will be considered for asylum in the U.S. What is not clear is whether that person, if denied in El Salvador, would have to also apply in Guatemala, and then Mexico, and be denied in all of those countries before the U.S. would consider an asylum request.
The latest on the Honduras agreement, from the Washington Post:
The Trump administration announced a migration deal Wednesday that will give U.S. immigration authorities the ability to send asylum seekers from the border to Honduras, one of the most violent and unstable nations in the world.
Department of Homeland Security officials reached the accord with the government of President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is embroiled in allegations of government corruption and charges that he and others have been operating the nation as a criminal enterprise — Hernández has been named as a co-conspirator in a major U.S. drug trafficking case.
The deal paves the way for the United States to take asylum seekers from the U.S. border and ship them to a nation with one of the highest murder rates in the world, a country with gang wars that have fueled waves of mass migration and multiple “caravans” to the United States that became a major irritant to President Trump.
Last week a similar accord was signed with El Salvador:
The Trump administration announced an accord Friday that will allow the United States to divert asylum seekers from the U.S. border to El Salvador, pushing migrants into one of the most dangerous countries in the world. The deal between the two governments is the latest measure aimed at creating new layers of deterrents to the influx of migrants applying for protection on U.S. soil.
Kevin McAleenan, the acting homeland security secretary, signed a “memorandum of understanding” with Salvadoran Foreign Minister Alexandra Hill in front of television cameras in Washington, but the two officials gave few details and no indication when their accord would take effect.
McAleenan, who traveled to El Salvador for talks last month with President Nayib Bukele, praised a “shared responsibility” on migration that was part of a broader deal to accelerate economic development in Central America with the goal of keeping migrants in their home countries.
Of course, it gets worse. If you make it to the United States and somehow manage to get across the border and apply for asylum - you will be sent back to Mexico. This includes families with children. Why? Monday, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would no longer release families during asylum processes.
"With some humanitarian and medical exceptions, DHS will no longer be releasing family units from Border Patrol Stations into the interior," McAleenan said in his prepared remarks. "This means that for family units, the largest demographic by volume arriving at the border this year, the court-mandated practice of catch and release due to the inability of DHS to complete immigration proceedings with families detained together in custody — will have been mitigated."
"If migrant family units do not claim fear of return, they will be quickly returned to their country of origin, in close collaboration with Central American countries," the statement read. "If they do claim fear, they will generally be returned to Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP)."
At this point we have to remind everybody - everybody - seeking asylum is legal. It is guaranteed by international law, and it is guaranteed as an option for anyone, no matter how they enter the country, under U.S. law. Trump’s new initiatives all take provisions of U.S. law and warp them far beyond their intended meaning. The agreements with Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are stand ins for formal agreements to designate a country as a “safe third country” which, under current U.S. law, the administration could require people to first apply for asylum there. The only safe third country agreement we have is with Canada. Beyond that, the intent of the law clearly emphasizes “safe” not “third country.” Trump is mocking the whole concept and killing asylum in the United States as political theater for his base.