The Beat Goes On: Trump has finalized an agreement to deport asylum seekers to El Salvador

Nicole Narea, who is writing some great immigration stuff on Vox, reports that the Trump administration is continuing the full court press on immigration into the final days of the Trump presidency.  Earlier this week, the administration announced that will commence implementation of a controversial agreement to return asylum seekers to El Salvador.  Here is the Department of Homeland Security announcement.

The Asylum Cooperative Agreement, signed in September 2019, is one of three such pacts that the United States has made to deter migration. The other agreements are with Honduras and Guatemala; the agreement with Guatemala has gone into effect so far.

According to Narea, the United States “is returning people seeking asylum to those countries despite the fact that migrants are commonly robbed, kidnapped for ransom, raped, tortured, and killed in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, and the State Department has issued travel warnings for US citizens in all four countries. El Salvador has the highest homicide rate in the world, while Honduras ranks fifth, and Guatemala 16th, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. All have rampant government corruption and high rates of violence against women and LGBTQ individuals.”

KJ