🔍
The U.S. Is Outsourcing Asylum to Guatemala, Here's Why That's Dangerous | The Dispatch - YouTube
Channel: The New York Times
[7]
A year ago, this woman says
she was paying $500 a month
[10]
to the MS-13 gang in
El Salvador, extortion money
[14]
to keep her restaurant
up and running.
[16]
Then gang members
murdered her son-in-law,
[19]
and she and her daughter
testified against them.
[33]
In the past, her story might
have been grounds for asylum
[36]
in the United States — or at
least an asylum hearing —
[39]
but not anymore.
[43]
That’s because the
Trump administration is upending
[45]
the U.S. asylum system.
[47]
“So that’s a very big thing.
[48]
It’s a very
important signature.”
[50]
And one way
they’re doing it is
[51]
through a deal with Guatemala,
called the
[53]
Asylum Cooperation Agreement,
or ACA.
[56]
“This landmark
agreement will put
[58]
the coyotes and the
smugglers out of business,
[61]
and stop asylum
fraud and abuses.”
[64]
What this means in
practice is that hundreds
[66]
of asylum seekers from
Honduras and El Salvador
[69]
have been deported, and
told to seek refuge
[71]
in Guatemala instead.
[73]
But Guatemala is plagued by
many of the same problems
[76]
that people are fleeing
in the first place:
[78]
violence, poverty
and corruption.
[82]
So I came to see what asylum
in Guatemala looks like.
[101]
Once deported under
the ACA, asylum seekers
[104]
arrive at this shelter.
[128]
Everyone I speak
with is confused.
[130]
They’d made the long
journey north only
[132]
to end up back nearly
where they started.
[152]
The woman I met earlier,
the one threatened by MS-13,
[155]
is also staying
at the shelter.
[157]
She and her daughter are
applying for asylum here,
[160]
but a friend warns her that
the gang is tracking them.
[186]
She’s one of the
very few people
[187]
to pursue an
asylum claim here.
[189]
In fact, only about 16
[191]
of more than 900 people
have done so.
[197]
So why does this deal exist?
[203]
Even Guatemala’s newly
elected president,
[205]
Alejandro Giammattei,
[207]
acknowledges the deal
is political.
[228]
And he’s right.
[229]
They don’t want to stay here.
[230]
It’s too close to
home, and asylum here
[232]
offers little
protection or support.
[235]
The U.S. had pledged to
pump $47 million
[238]
into Guatemala’s
asylum system,
[239]
but it’s unclear how much of
that money has been received
[242]
or how it’s been spent.
[244]
Nevertheless, more of these
deals are in the pipeline.
[249]
“We entered into historic
cooperation agreements with …”
[252]
Soon, the
Trump administration plans
[253]
to implement asylum deals
with Honduras and El Salvador.
[257]
Those countries are
even less prepared.
[262]
Two days later,
I meet up again
[264]
with the woman who’s
running from MS-13.
[266]
Her situation has
already gotten worse.
[269]
She and her daughter can’t
stay at the shelter anymore.
[271]
They’ve been there a month,
and yet their asylum claims
[275]
could take a few months
to a year to process.
[298]
And that, in the end, may
be the point of these deals.
[301]
For the Trump
administration, the goal
[303]
is to stem the flow
of migrants to the U.S.,
[306]
perhaps by convincing
them not to come at all.
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage