Trump
Reaches Immigration Deal — Goes Around Open Border Democrats, by Richard Cowan,
9/21/19.
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) The United
States and El Salvador on Friday agreed to attempt to reduce the flow of
migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border by strengthening El Salvador’s
capacity to provide for asylum seekers, but did not detail any concrete
actions.
The core of this is recognizing El Salvador’s development of
their own asylum system and committing to help them build that capacity,”
Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan told reporters
in Washington after signing documents with El Salvador’s minister of foreign
affairs, Alexandra Hill.
“Individuals crossing through El Salvador should be able to seek
protections” in the Central American country even if they were intending to
apply for asylum in the United States, he added.
Neither official said when the arrangement would take effect or
provide details on how it would be administered. It was unclear how such a deal
would work, given that most migrants from other countries take routes that
avoid crossing the small, poverty-stricken El Salvador.
“We are going to work out operational details. This is just a
broad agreement,” Hill told Reuters upon leaving the signing ceremony.
The agreement represents the latest effort by McAleenan to seal
immigration deals with the Northern Triangle countries of Central America –
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador – from where many immigrants arriving at
the U.S. southern border set out.
U.S. President Donald Trump has made immigration enforcement a
centerpiece of his administration and is pushing to staunch the flow of
migrants – many of them families – crossing into the United States. Border
crossings reached record highs earlier this year, frustrating Trump.
Guatemala has signed a so-called ‘safe third country’ deal with
the United States that requires asylum seekers who travel through Guatemala on
the way to the U.S.-Mexico border to ask for refuge in Guatemala first, instead
of in the United States. The Guatemalan Congress, however, has not ratified the
deal. The United States has a similar safe third country agreement with Canada.
Honduras, meanwhile, held talks with the United States over
migration this week that will continue into next, Honduras’ foreign ministry
and the U.S. Embassy said in a joint statement on Friday.
Among the topics under discussion is the possibility of
requiring Cuban migrants to seek asylum in Honduras rather than the United
States.
Citing fears that the United States could retaliate against
Honduran exports, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez told local
television on Thursday that there was a need for a region-wide agreement with
Mexico, Guatemala and the United States, given increasing numbers of migrants
from Cuba and Africa traversing Central America to reach the United States.
“So we believe that Honduras should also become a safe country
to avoid the situation becoming more complicated,” Hernandez said.
Immigration advocates have criticized the deals, saying Central
American countries where many people are fleeing from violence, poverty and
endemic corruption, do not have the capacity to process more asylum claims and
cannot assure safety for vulnerable migrants.
“The real goal of the United States is to make sure these
(asylum) claims are never heard in a U.S. court,” said Douglas Rivlin,
spokesman for Washington-based pro-immigration group America’s Voice, following
the U.S.-El Salvador agreement.
El Salvador, which has 6.6 million people, is one of the world’s
most violent nations, largely due to criminal gangs involved in drug
trafficking and extortion.
As the U.S. government has pursued the deals, the Department of
Homeland Security in parallel issued a rule that would bar most migrants from
gaining U.S. asylum if they had not sought safe haven in any country they first
transited through.
The rule accomplishes virtually the same thing as the
agreements, but it has faced legal challenges. A federal court initially
blocked the rule from taking effect, but the Supreme Court on Sept. 11 allowed
it to be implemented while the court challenges are ongoing.
Reporting by Richard Cowan in Washington, Mica Rosenberg in New
York and Gustavo Palencia in Tegulcipaga; Additional reporting by Jan Wolfe in
Washington and Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City; Editing by Cynthia Osterman
and Rosalba O’Brien
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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