The United States and Guatemala signed a so-called safe third country immigration asylum agreement on Friday, July 26.
Trump on Friday said he agreed to drop the threat of economic sanctions against Guatemala after the country agreed to apply new migration measures to citizens from Honduras and El Salvador.
Trump told reporters that Guatemala had signed a safe third country agreement, but the Guatemalan government did not use that term. It said that the new measures applied only to Honduran and Salvadoran citizens.
Trump said the agreement would allow easier access to farmer workers for U.S. farms and ranches.
“They’re doing what we’ve asked them to do,” Trump told reporters at the White House, calling Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales a “terrific guy.”
“We have other great countries who are going to be signing on also,” he said, without providing further details.
Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan told reporters at the White House the pact would protect “asylum seekers at the earliest possible point in their journey.”
“If you have a Honduran family or an El Salvadoran national, instead of them having to pay a smuggler, come all the way to our border to seek asylum, when they arrive in Guatemala they’re in a country that has a fair proceeding for assessing asylum claims and that’s where they should make that claim,” McAleenan said.
The Guatemalan government said in a statement that the deal would allow its citizens to apply for temporary visas to work in the U.S. agricultural sector, and in the medium- to long-term, would allow for work visas for the construction and service sectors.
Morales said on Facebook that the agreement had headed off the threat of “drastic sanctions” against Guatemala.
Morales was due to sign a deal with Trump last week that would have made the country act as an asylum buffer zone to reduce immigration to the United States.
But the country’s Constitutional Court ruled he could not sign such an agreement without prior approval from Congress, which is on a summer recess.
In response, Trump threatened Guatemala in a tweet on Tuesday. “Now we are looking at the ‘BAN,’ Tariffs, Remittance Fees, or all of the above. Guatemala has not been good,” Trump wrote.
Guatemala President Jimmy Morales canceled a trip to Washington on July 14 that would have included negotiations for a safe third country. The agreement would require migrants from El Salvador and Honduras to seek asylum in Guatemala and allow the United States to deport migrants from those countries to Guatemala as they await a resolution of their asylum claims.
Prior to the Twitter message about Guatemala, Trump hadn’t publicly mentioned remittances since he was elected. Remittances are payments sent overseas by workers in the United States. Remittance payments from the United States are a top source of revenue for both Guatemala and Mexico.
Guatemala received $9.5 billion in remittances in 2018. Honduras and El Salvador received $4.7 billion and $5.4 billion, respectively.
The president’s reference to a “ban” is least clear of the three options he listed, but likely refers to a travel restriction on Guatemalan citizens. Trump has previously banned travel from several nations with high concentrations of terrorists. The Supreme Court upheld a version of the order in June last year.
The United States has been attempting to negotiate a safe third country deal with several Central American nations. Mexico has agreed to consider signing a safe third country deal if it fails to reduce migration flows to the United States.
The State Department is following through on an order from Trump and cutting $550 million in aid to Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, also known as the Northern Triangle.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview on July 22 that the United States has broadened its economic engagement with the Northern Triangle, noting that in addition to direct migration from the three countries, many of the migrants who arrive on the U.S. border transit through the area.
“Many of the folks that we apprehend today at our southern border are not only from those three countries but are transiting through those three countries. They have an obligation,” Pompeo told conservative radio host Buck Sexton.
“It’s interesting—I saw some statistics on how many Guatemalans have left, how deep the level of migration is. This isn’t good for Guatemala to have their citizens leaving either. They need their people to want to stay in the country, and their leaders need to create rule of law and systems that will convince them that that’s the right thing to do.”
