Perspective: Third-state havens“Offshore Processing” in Guatemala: A Deeper Look at the U.S. Asylum Deal

For more than twenty years, a little-noticed provision of U.S. law allowing for the transfer of asylum seekers to a third country for processing lay dormant, until late last month when the United States and Guatemala signed an agreement that essentially replicates Australia’s so-called “offshore-processing” system.

Regina Jefferies writes in Just Security that the heading “safe third country” is affixed to the section of the U.S. Code that purportedly provides the domestic legal basis for the bilateral deal with Guatemala – 8 U.S.C.§ 1158(a)(2)(A) – but the agreement signed on July 26 is definitively not a “safe third country” accord.

Instead, the U.S.-Guatemala agreement is an asylum-seeker transfer arrangement that, as Susan Gzesh observed in an earlier piece for Just Security, bears a striking resemblance to Australia’s “regional processing” agreement with Nauru, a tiny island country in Micronesia where Australia sends those attempting to travel to the country by boat seeking asylum. This “offshore processing” regime has been a self-inflicted humanitarian disaster for Australia, leaving countless genuine refugees with serious physical and mental health problems and resulting in the deaths of many others.

Understood in that context, the U.S.-Guatemala agreement represents a far different choice of policy direction than a “safe third country” agreement. This is particularly so in light of the recent election of Alejandro Giammettei as the new president of Guatemala, though he has said that he does not support the agreement. Giammettei is the former head of the country’s prison system, and his rhetoric and record have raised serious human rights concerns.