The Biden administration said on Saturday it was immediately suspending Trump-era asylum agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, part of a bid to undo his Republican predecessor's hardline immigration policies.
In a statement, State Department Secretary Antony Blinken said the United States had "suspended and initiated the process to terminate the Asylum Cooperative Agreements with the Governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras as the first concrete steps on the path to greater partnership and collaboration in the region laid out by President Biden."
The so-called "safe third country" agreements, inked in 2019 by the Trump administration and the Central American nations, force asylum seekers from the region to first seek refuge in those countries before applying in the United States.
Part of a controversial bid by Trump to crack down on illegal immigrants from Central America who make up a large part of migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border, the policies were never implemented with El Salvador and Honduras, the State Department said on Saturday.
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