{"slug":"guatemala-asylum-cooperative-agreement-2019","title":"US–Guatemala Asylum Cooperative Agreement: Asylum Seekers Transferred to Guatemala Without a Hearing (2019–2020)","date":"2019-07-26","lastUpdated":"2026-10-04","description":"Under the Asylum Cooperative Agreement signed with Guatemala on 26 July 2019 and implemented by an interim final rule effective 19 November 2019, the Trump administration barred Honduran and Salvadoran asylum seekers from applying for asylum in the United States and flew them to Guatemala instead. Human Rights Watch and Refugees International report that 939 people, about 75% of them women and children, were transferred between 21 November 2019 and 16 March 2020, and that only 20 (about 2%) lodged asylum claims in Guatemala, whose asylum system had a 713-case backlog and a handful of caseworkers. The report concluded that transferees were \"effectively compelled to abandon their asylum claims\" and that some with a well-founded fear of persecution appeared to be returning to the countries they had fled.","summary":"The US sent 939 Central American asylum seekers to Guatemala without letting them apply for asylum in the US. Guatemala's asylum system could not process their claims, and the HRW/Refugees International investigation found that almost none applied there and that some went home to the danger they fled. Transfers stopped in March 2020 because of Covid-19.","category":"deportation","severity":"severe","ongoing":false,"sources":[{"url":"https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/05/19/deportation-layover/failure-protection-under-us-guatemala-asylum-cooperative","title":"Deportation with a Layover: Failure of Protection under the US-Guatemala Asylum Cooperative Agreement","publisher":"Human Rights Watch and Refugees International"},{"url":"https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/11/19/2019-25137/implementing-bilateral-and-multilateral-asylum-cooperative-agreements-under-the-immigration-and","title":"Implementing Bilateral and Multilateral Asylum Cooperative Agreements Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (interim final rule)","publisher":"Federal Register (DOJ/DHS)"},{"url":"https://www.aclu.org/cases/ut-v-barr","title":"U.T. v. Barr","publisher":"American Civil Liberties Union"},{"url":"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16698886/ut-v-barr/","title":"Docket, U.T. v. Barr, No. 1:20-cv-00116 (D.D.C.)","publisher":"CourtListener (Free Law Project)"}],"draft":false,"status":"published","tags":["asylum","safe third country","Asylum Cooperative Agreement","Guatemala","refoulement","Honduras","El Salvador"],"relatedEntries":["remain-in-mexico-reimposition","cbp-one-shutdown-asylum-elimination","asylum-ban-executive-order"],"timeline":[{"date":"2019-07-26","title":"US and Guatemala sign the Asylum Cooperative Agreement","summary":"The agreement lets the US send non-Guatemalan asylum seekers to Guatemala instead of hearing their claims. Agreements with Honduras and El Salvador follow but no transfers under them had begun by May 2020 (HRW/RI)."},{"date":"2019-11-19","title":"Interim final rule takes effect","summary":"DOJ and DHS publish and make effective a rule creating a threshold screening that bars covered asylum seekers from applying in the US (Federal Register)."},{"date":"2019-11-21","title":"First transfers to Guatemala","summary":"Transfers of Honduran and Salvadoran asylum seekers to Guatemala City begin (HRW/RI)."},{"date":"2020-03-16","title":"Transfers suspended","summary":"Transfers stop because of the Covid-19 pandemic, after 939 people had been sent (HRW/RI)."},{"date":"2020-05-19","title":"HRW and Refugees International publish 'Deportation with a Layover'","summary":"The report concludes Guatemala does not meet the US statutory standard for a safe third country and calls for the agreement to be rescinded."}],"location":{"name":"Guatemala City, Guatemala (transfer destination); US–Mexico border","lat":14.5833,"lng":-90.5275},"custom":{"era":"first-term","posture":"reported","internationalLaw":[{"statute":"1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (incorporating 1951 Convention Arts. 2–34)","article":"Article 33","provision":"Non-refoulement, including indirect (chain) refoulement through a third state that does not provide effective protection. The US is party to the Protocol, not the 1951 Convention."},{"statute":"Convention against Torture","article":"Article 3","provision":"No return to a state where there are substantial grounds to believe the person would be in danger of torture"},{"statute":"International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights","article":"Articles 7 and 13","provision":"Protection against return to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; procedural guarantees before expulsion of lawfully present aliens"}],"iccRelevance":false,"victims":"939 Honduran and Salvadoran asylum seekers transferred to Guatemala (345 women, 357 children, 237 men, per HRW/RI), including LGBT people and people fleeing gangs that also operate in Guatemala.","perpetrators":"Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice (interim final rule); Customs and Border Protection (transfers); the Trump administration that negotiated the agreement","keyPoints":["The interim final rule (84 FR, 19 November 2019) barred people covered by an Asylum Cooperative Agreement from applying for asylum in the US, subject only to a screening in which they had to show it was 'more likely than not' they would be persecuted or tortured in the third country itself.","Human Rights Watch and Refugees International report that 939 Honduran and Salvadoran asylum seekers were transferred to Guatemala between 21 November 2019 and 16 March 2020, 75% of them women and children (345 women, 357 children, 237 men).","Only 20 of the 939 (about 2%) filed official asylum applications in Guatemala, although UNHCR partners found about two-thirds of those they interviewed had international protection concerns (HRW/RI).","Guatemala's asylum office had three caseworkers, three investigators and one supervisor in mid-2019, per a US embassy cable cited by HRW/RI; the backlog reached 713 cases by the end of March 2020.","Transferees had 72 hours after arrival to choose between applying in Guatemala, returning home, or leaving; HRW/RI call the deadline insufficient and 'arbitrary' and report that many learned only on arrival that they could not seek asylum in the US.","Interviewees described being held by CBP for 7 to 20 days before transfer, longer than DHS's 72-hour standard, with inadequate food and medical care (HRW/RI).","The ACLU and partner groups sued in U.T. v. Barr (No. 1:20-cv-00116, D.D.C., filed 15 January 2020), arguing the policy violated the Refugee Act, the INA and the APA. The case has had no merits ruling: on 21 September 2026 Judge Emmet Sullivan certified a class and allowed a second amended complaint (CourtListener docket)."],"searchAliases":["safe third country agreement Guatemala","ACA transfers","Deportation with a Layover"],"legalBasis":"INA § 208(a)(2)(A) safe-third-country bar, which requires 'access to a full and fair procedure' in the receiving state; Refugee Protocol Art. 33 (non-refoulement, including indirect refoulement); CAT Art. 3. No international-crime characterisation is in play.","postureNote":"No court has ruled on the merits of the Guatemala transfers. The transfer and outcome figures rest on one field investigation (Human Rights Watch and Refugees International, May 2020), which draws on Guatemalan government data and UNHCR partner interviews; they should be treated as that report's findings. The ACLU-led challenge, U.T. v. Barr (No. 1:20-cv-00116, D.D.C.), was still pending in September 2026, when the court certified a class and granted leave to file a second amended complaint.","relatedIncidents":["remain-in-mexico-reimposition","cbp-one-shutdown-asylum-elimination","asylum-ban-executive-order"]}}