Published Agreement Allows the United States to Transfer Asylum Seekers to Honduras

Please see below statement from Refugees International’s Senior U.S. Advocate Yael Schacher on an agreement between the U.S. government and Honduras to send non-Honduran asylum seekers to Honduras to seek refuge:

“Now that the asylum cooperative agreement between the United States and Honduras has been published, the United States can begin sending non-Honduran asylum seekers to Honduras to seek refuge there. This would be illegal and inhumane at any time because Honduras is incredibly dangerous and lacks a functioning asylum system. In the midst of a global pandemic, with Honduras on lockdown and under a state of emergency, it is absolutely unconscionable. 

Just as the United States government’s asylum cooperative agreement with Guatemala put asylum seekers in danger and ultimately thrust them back to the harm they tried to escape in their home countries, this agreement will do the same. 

Last month, the CDC gave the administration extraordinary power to expel and repatriate all asylum seekers at the border during the COVID-19 emergency. The publication of this agreement now shows that the administration is already planning ways to continue its decimation of the U.S. asylum system in a post-COVID 19 world.”

For more information or to interview Yael, please contact Sarah Sheffer at ssheffer@refugeesinternational.org or 203 305 9880.