Guatemala: The Failed “Third Safe Country”
Written by: Emma Obregon Dominguez
Edited by: Amineh Najam-Ud-Din
The Trump Administration and the Republic of Guatemala Enter an Agreement
On July 26th, 2019, the Republic of Guatemala and the Government of the United States—under the Trump Administration— entered the agreement “on Cooperation Regarding the Examination of Protection Claims.” The Republic of Guatemala, led by President Jimmy Morales, agreed to become a “third safe country” as part of the U.S. plan to “confront illegal immigration at the source.” This would mean the asylum seekers who arrived at the U.S. border could not request asylum in the U.S. and would be swiftly sent to Guatemala as a newfound third “safe country.”
The imminent problem with this agreement was that Guatemala is not an effective “safe country”, and lacks the necessary infrastructure and resources to support asylum seekers. Unfortunately, according to the World Bank, Guatemala has one of the highest crime rates in Latin America. The United States even recognized such dangers; the State Department advised Americans to “exercise extreme caution” when traveling to Guatemala in 2019. Despite having a large economy, Guatemala has the “fourth highest rate of chronic malnutrition” worldwide, and more than half of its population lives below the poverty line.
Furthermore, the beautiful country- nicknamed—“the land of eternal spring”—is also home to persistant instances of discrimination that represent a danger to asylum seekers. In Guatemala, women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and migrants “face higher risks of violence,” than other countries— like the United States— as there is vast institutional discrimination on the basis of gender, background, and sexual orientation in Guatemala. Nery Rodenas, Director of the Office of Human Rights of the Archbishop of Guatemala, put it plainly, stating that , “we are not a safe country.”
Backlash from Immigrant Advocacy Groups and the Biden Administration
The Agreement was a highly controversial political move, as it violates both U.S. and International law. This is because it denies “asylum seekers a viable path to protection in the United States or Guatemala”, as Georgetown Law’s Human Rights Institute reported. However, this did not stop the Trump Administration from taking further action. On December 29, 2020, The Department of Homeland Security announced the Asylum Cooperation Agreement (ACA)—which they called a “historic milestone”. This Agreement stated that Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras would all help the United States to “mitigate the ongoing humanitarian and security crisis,” by effectively all becoming “safe countries.”
This announcement caused public outrage, and as the nation prepared for the newly elected Biden-Harris Administration to take control of the White House, many immigration advocacy groups mobilized to get the Agreement rescinded. On February 6, 2021, the U.S. Department of State announced that the ACA’s had been suspended and were in the process to be terminated. In the same press statement given by Antony J. Blinken, the Secretary of State, the Biden-Harris Administration also vowed to “address the root causes of forced displacement and irregular migration,”
Nevertheless, immigration groups expected more from the Administration, and on July 9, 2021, 85 organizations called on Biden to provide access to asylum to those deported to Guatemala during Trump’s presidency. Among these organizations were the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, Immigration Equality, and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.
Despite the Biden Administration’s actions to fulfill their election promise to fix the immigration system, there is still a lot to be done to provide a fair and human rights-centric solution. The fate of many lies in President Biden’s ability to restructure the current fragmented system.As the risk of having aggressive and detrimental immigration policies, like the Asylum Cooperation Agreements, increases exponentially as time goes on and there is no concrete solution.
