Outsourcing Human Rights Abuses

A recent agreement with the Paraguayan government highlights how the U.S. shirks its responsibility to treat migrants humanely

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

To curb migration from countries adversely affected by climate change, oppressive regimes, and civil war, much of it due to Western interventionism, “Safe Third Country Agreements” (STCA) have been implemented to essentially shirk human rights responsibilities and dump migrants on other countries. These types of agreements originated in 1989 at the UN Refugee Agency to help humanely address the mass migration out of East Berlin and elsewhere.

The “Refugee Protection and Mixed-Migration: The 10-Point Plan in Action” report discusses the “phenomenon of refugees” who move in “an irregular manner” from countries where they have already found protection and leave to seek asylum and find permanent resettlement in a third country, calling it “a matter of growing concern.” The plan created standards for countries to share the responsibility of aiding refugees in seeking asylum.

While the report addresses why migrants may feel compelled to leave a country they pass through due to a lack of resources, employment, or educational opportunities, it didn’t address how migrants may want to leave due to not being welcomed or a country that can’t handle larger influxes of migrants. In today’s environment, various elements are at play, like regional xenophobia and white nationalism in the U.S., that weren’t major issues in 1989, and now these agreements are being used for a much different purpose: to outsource human rights obligations.

The U.S. began using these agreements after signing a formal STCA with Canada in 2004. The U.S. later signed more informal “Asylum Cooperative Agreements” with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador that were established in 2019 under the first Trump administration. While the Biden administration effectively cancelled those agreements, Trump has made it very clear just how his administration intends to weaponize them again.

STCAs require asylum seekers to make their asylum claim in the first safe country they arrive in. Referring to them as “safe countries,” however, is a misnomer since many Latin American nations, unlike the Canadian government, lack the infrastructure to meet the needs of refugees. Many migrants were removed under the first Trump administration (and are being removed now) based on these protocols.

Under Trump, in both his first term and now, if a migrant arrives in the United States after passing through any of the countries mentioned above, they are blocked from access to the U.S. asylum system and ultimately deported or repatriated to those countries. The White House’s willingness to send migrants to inhumane El Salvadorian prisons or prisons in countries in danger of civil war highlights how easy it is to outsource human rights abuses under current U.S. law and through agreements meant to standardize humane treatment.

On Thursday, the U.S. announced another formal agreement with Paraguay. Because it’s a formal agreement, the framework is likely to be similar to Canada’s. Nevertheless, since Canada’s agreement is based on a land border, the details related to Paraguay are likely to be much broader and established based on various modes of entry. It will allow the U.S. to refer asylum seekers to Paraguay for their claims to be processed there.

“This agreement is just one example of the broader strategic partnership between the United States and Paraguay,” reads a press statement attributable to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “Under President Santiago Peña’s leadership, we are deepening cooperation across security, diplomatic, and economic fronts. Together, we are combating transnational crime, countering malign actors, and advancing regional stability.”

The Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries is being framed as part of a broader strategic partnership, but Rubio’s and DHS Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar’s rhetoric equating the U.S. asylum system being “abused” with gang and cartel activity should be noted. The administration’s “poisoning our streets” language is also being weaponized as immigration continues to be correlated with national security, as it has been since 9/11.

“A threat to the national security of the United States. And obviously, these are groups that are operating with impunity in international waters, simply exporting to the United States poison that is killing, that is destroying communities,” said Rubio when asked a leading question about deploying the U.S. Navy to tackle cartel activity.” So it is a very serious issue, and we have many countries that cooperate with us in that effort, and some, unfortunately, that do not.”

The administration continues to create false narratives to create an environment of panic and fear; therefore, convincing the public that what it’s doing is justified, similar to how they convinced everyone that “criminal” migrants need to be deported without ever defining what a “criminal migrant” is. To them, it was anyone who wasn’t white who came to the U.S., whether via the southern border or otherwise. Meanwhile, society in general bought it and now regrets it.

Human Rights Issues

The duplicity of STCAs being discussed humanely when Germans were fleeing Germany and being used inhumanely when the migrants are nonwhite is not lost on most people. In most cases, the migrants sent back to third countries are inevitably deported to where they fled from, keeping them in danger. The process has been referred to as “deportation with a layover” by Human Rights Watch.

During the first Trump administration, Asylum Cooperative Agreements (ACAs) were created as an alternative to STCAs, allowing the administration to remove or repatriate migrants to third countries, such as El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, without granting them access to the asylum system; that is, due process. In 2022, Human Rights First (HRF) underscored this.

“ACAs are distinctive from safe third-country agreements in that they enable the U.S. government to expel asylum seekers, without any opportunity to seek U.S. humanitarian protection, to countries through which they may never have transited, without regard for their risk of further persecution in those countries nor for the receiving countries’ capacity to effectively assess their asylum claims,” said the HRF report.

Human Rights First also emphasizes how these policies continued into the Biden administration before subsequently being canceled. The report highlights just how devious these policies can be, and since they can be implemented with just a signature from the president, it shows how Trump can circumvent Congress by outsourcing human rights to countries with less-than-stellar records.

“The U.S. government expelled at least 945 asylum seekers to Guatemala under the ACA before its termination in January 2021; none had been granted asylum there,” reads the HRF report. “The Biden administration has provided no recourse for those illegally expelled to Guatemala and denied the opportunity to seek U.S. protection. The agreements with Honduras and El Salvador were never implemented.”

Possible Motivations