Immigration’s New Deal: Asylum agreement reached with El Salvador looks like a solid win

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan had a big news item on Friday when the story broke that he and El Salvador foreign minister Alexandra Hill Tinoco have signed a “cooperative asylum agreement” between the United States and the Central American nation.

The bottom line of the agreement is more people headed north to the U.S. seeking asylum will have reason to remain in El Salvador as a sort of haven while the wheels of the process turn. That is, to have an asylum framework in the nation and the means to cope with the situation that they are already in.

McAleenan told reporters on Friday that the deal is designed to “try to further our efforts to provide opportunities to seek protection for political, racial, religious or social group persecution as close as possible to the origin of individuals that need it.”

In other words, it’s an investment in El Salvador on our part to help the nation not only cope with streams of refugees from other countries, but to reduce the large amount of those fleeing El Salavador for the United States, seeking refugee status based on the high crime and drug gang violence in the nation.

From the Associated Press:

The agreement, first reported by The Associated Press, could lead to migrants from third countries obtaining refuge in El Salvador even though many Salvadorans are fleeing their nation and seeking asylum in the United States. A Salvadoran delegation has been in the U.S. this week to discuss the matter.

McAleenan said the agreement advanced El Salvador’s commitment to developing an asylum framework, with help from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

“This will build on the good work we have accomplished already with El Salvador’s neighbor, Guatemala, in building protection capacity to try to further our efforts to provide opportunities to seek protection for political, racial, religious or social group persecution as close as possible to the origin of individuals that need it,” McAleenan said.

It’s the latest effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to force asylum-seekers in Central America to seek refuge outside the United States. Immigration officials also are forcing more than 42,000 people to remain in Mexico as their cases play out and have changed policy to deny asylum to anyone who transited through a third country en route to the southern border of the U.S.

Naturally open borders types and Democrat immigration extremists are condemning the decision, saying that it is putting refugees and asylum seekers at risk by forcing them to remain in sh*thole countries. They didn’t use that phrase, but that is their implication.

“Today’s announcement of a ‘cooperative asylum agreement’ between the United States and El Salvador is yet another example of the U.S. government’s callous disregard for the safety and lives of people fleeing violence in Central America,” said Alison Parker, managing director for the U.S. program of Human Rights Watch. “El Salvador does not have the capacity to keep its own nationals safe, much less migrants from any other country.” Parker added that only 18 people are seeking asylum inside El Salvador.

Mind you, there aren’t many details out yet about the specifics of this agreement, so the reaction is based simply on the idea that those attempting to find refuge in the United States may have to wait for a while in a country which we’ll be giving support and money to and which will have the aid of the United Nations. Wow, what monsters we are.


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