AsylumU.S. Not Alone in Restricting Asylum Eligibility
U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to dramatically curtail claims for asylum in the United States — cheered by the administration’s supporters and condemned by immigration rights advocates — is unprecedented on America’s southern border but not unique on the world stage. Europe in particular has imposed restrictive rules for asylum-seekers that predate this year’s flurry of activity in the United States.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to dramatically curtail claims for asylum in the United States — cheered by the administration’s supporters and condemned by immigration rights advocates — is unprecedented on America’s southern border but not unique on the world stage.
Europe in particular has imposed restrictive rules for asylum-seekers that predate this year’s flurry of activity in the United States.
Recent months have brought sweeping changes in how the U.S. handles asylum claims at the border. Those changes are expected to preclude asylum for the vast majority who seek it.
Washington has forged pacts with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, designating them as asylum destinations where claims are to be filed before protection is sought in the U.S. The accords work hand-in-hand with a Trump administration policy, temporarily greenlighted by the U.S. Supreme Court, stipulating that non-Mexicans must seek asylum in a third country they transited on route to the U.S. border before filing a claim in the U.S.
The result, according to critics, is a de facto asylum ban that forces people to file claims in some of the most impoverished and violent nations in the Americas.
“No one is seeking protection in countries from which everyone is fleeing,” said Helena Olea, an international human rights lawyer and Alianza Americas human rights adviser.
For his part, Trump on Thursday proudly touted his immigration agenda at a political rally in Minnesota, saying, “My administration is taking historic action to secure the border. We have reduced illegal border crossings by over 60% since May, and we are building the wall [between the United States and Mexico] faster than anyone ever anticipated it could be built.”
For all the attention the White House’s border initiatives have drawn, the United States is not alone in forging regional asylum deals in which nations share responsibility for processing claims filed by people fleeing persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations.
The “Safe Third” Model
It has been 29 years since the European Union adopted its first “safe third country” asylum initiative, known as the Dublin Regulation. In its present-day form, any migrant who requests asylum at an E.U. country’s borders, having entered from another E.U. country (or Norway or Switzerland), is refused entry.
The procedure was intended to share the burden of asylum-seekers among nations party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
As the Syrian refugee crisis has worn on, leaders representing some of the involved nations have
