The Trump administration has expanded upon its initiatives to remove asylum-seekers and other individuals to third countries expeditiously and summarily by reviving a signature immigration policy from its first term. In early 2025, the U.S. government entered into agreements with Honduras and Guatemala, enabling it to transfer asylum-seekers to pursue their claim for protection in those countries. While the Honduras compact is exceedingly similar to the ‘Asylum Cooperative Agreements’ (ACAs) signed in 2019 with Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, the Guatemala deal is distinct in that, in addition to being much less thorough, it applies only to nationals of Central America and is not limited to asylum-seekers—suggesting that other immigrants could also be subject to it. This renewal is likely to have serious consequences for asylum-seekers and for the viability of refugee protection frameworks in the United States and beyond.  

Like the earlier accords, these agreements are premised on the notion that Honduras and Guatemala are “safe” countries where those transferred will not face threats to their lives or freedom and will have access to full and fair asylum procedures, pursuant to an exception to the right to apply for asylum under U.S. law at 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(A). Recent reporting on Honduras and Guatemala, including by the U.S. government, however, describes inadequate asylum procedures and widespread discrimination and violence against certain groups of people, such as migrants, women, children, LGBTIQ+ individuals, and members of Indigenous communities. During late 2019 and early 2020, the U.S. government sent nearly 1,000 asylum-seekers to Guatemala (the other two ACAs were never implemented), where many feared for their safety and as few as 20 sought protection. It is unclear whether any ultimately received asylum.

Despite these realities, and the fact that U.S. law allows persons physically present to seek asylum, the U.S. government is moving swiftly to operationalize the new ACAs. It reportedly has sought to terminate immigration proceedings of individuals it desires to send to Honduras or Guatemala and, if successful, would deprive people of their opportunity to have their claim adjudicated in the United States and put them at risk of transfer to a place where they may face persecution and torture or lack access to protection. Immigrants’ rights advocates had previously filed a legal challenge against the original ACAs, U.T. v. Barr, which was subsequently paused when the Biden administration suspended and declared its intent to terminate the agreements. Now, however, advocates are considering re-activating the case to defend and uphold the right to seek asylum.

More broadly, these developments align with the current administration’s emphasis on removing asylum-seekers and other immigrants to third countries, often without regard to due process rights and potential international protection needs. Earlier in 2025, the United States began deporting, or attempting to deport, people with final removal orders to places it had not initially identified and where people had no connection, such as to Mexico, El Salvador, South Sudan, and Libya, without providing an opportunity to contest the decision. A group of affected individuals filed a lawsuit, D.V.D. v. DHS, seeking to halt the practice, arguing that it violates U.S. obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol and the Convention Against Torture. Although a district court preliminarily paused the policy, the case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned the lower court’s ruling and permitted implementation of the policy while the litigation proceeds.

Such an approach will likely have profound adverse impacts on people’s lives and safety and carry global implications for the reception of and protection for asylum-seekers. The principle of non-refoulement, the cornerstone of international refugee law, prohibits states from returning people to any country or territory where they may face persecution or torture. Yet, these current U.S. policies fail to uphold this fundamental commitment. International legal standards allow for transfer arrangements, but only with sufficient safeguards because of the potential severe consequences for asylum-seekers. While this certainly is not the first endeavour intending to send asylum-seekers elsewhere for processing without sufficient precautions, continued and additional arrangements of this type may inspire other countries to follow suit and signal general acceptance of the practice, thereby eroding protections for those who have been forcibly displaced.