{"id":20134,"date":"2025-06-27T21:52:19","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T21:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/20134\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T21:52:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T21:52:19","slug":"guatemalas-president-denies-new-asylum-deal-with-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/20134\/","title":{"rendered":"Guatemala’s president denies new asylum deal with US"},"content":{"rendered":"

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) \u2014 Guatemala<\/a> President Bernardo Ar\u00e9valo said Friday he has not signed an agreement with the United States to take asylum seekers from other countries, pushing back against comments from U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Noem and Ar\u00e9valo met Thursday in Guatemala and the two governments publicly signed a joint security agreement that would allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to work in the capital\u2019s airport, training local agents how to screen for terrorism suspects.<\/p>\n

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\"U.S.<\/p>\n

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, second from left, meets with Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo, right, at the National Culture Palace in Guatemala City, Thursday, June 26, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker\/Pool photo via AP)<\/p>\n

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, second from left, meets with Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo, right, at the National Culture Palace in Guatemala City, Thursday, June 26, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker\/Pool photo via AP)<\/p>\n

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But Noem said she had also been given a signed document she called a safe third country agreement. She said she reached a similar deal in Honduras and said they were important outcomes of her trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonduras and now Guatemala after today will be countries that will take those individuals and give them refugee status as well,\u201d Noem said. \u201cWe\u2019ve never believed that the United States should be the only option, that the guarantee for a refugee is that they go somewhere to be safe and to be protected from whatever threat they face in their country. It doesn\u2019t necessarily have to be the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about Noem\u2019s comments Friday during a news conference, Ar\u00e9valo said that nothing new was signed related to immigration and that Guatemala was still operating under an agreement reached with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a> in February. That agreement stipulated that Guatemala would continue accepting the deportation of its own citizens, but also citizens of other Central American nations as a transit point on their way home.<\/p>\n

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\"U.S.<\/p>\n

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, left, shakes hands with Guatemalan Interior Minister Francisco Jimenez, at a signing ceremony at the National Palace in Guatemala City, Thursday, June 26, 2025. (AP Photo\/Moises Castillo)<\/p>\n

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, left, shakes hands with Guatemalan Interior Minister Francisco Jimenez, at a signing ceremony at the National Palace in Guatemala City, Thursday, June 26, 2025. (AP Photo\/Moises Castillo)<\/p>\n

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Ar\u00e9valo said that when Rubio visited, safe third country was discussed because Guatemala had signed such an agreement during U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s first term in office. But \u201cwe made it clear that our path was different,\u201d Ar\u00e9valo said.<\/p>\n

He did add that Guatemala was willing to provide asylum to Nicaraguans who have been unable to return to their country because of the political situation there out of \u201csolidarity.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"People<\/p>\n

People deported from the United States disembark from a repatriation flight, during a Department of Homeland Security operations tour for visiting Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, at La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City, Thursday, June 26, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker\/Pool Photo via AP)<\/p>\n

People deported from the United States disembark from a repatriation flight, during a Department of Homeland Security operations tour for visiting Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, at La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City, Thursday, June 26, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker\/Pool Photo via AP)<\/p>\n

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The president\u2019s communications office said Noem had been given the ratification of the agreement reached through diplomatic notes weeks earlier.<\/p>\n

During Trump\u2019s first term, the U.S. signed such safe third-country agreements with Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala<\/a>. They effectively allowed the U.S. to declare some asylum seekers ineligible to apply for U.S. protection and permitted the U.S. government to send them to those countries deemed \u201csafe.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"U.S.<\/p>\n

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem boards a plane after touring the Department of Homeland Security operations at La Aurora International Airport, in Guatemala City, Thursday, June 26, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker\/Pool Photo via AP)<\/p>\n

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem boards a plane after touring the Department of Homeland Security operations at La Aurora International Airport, in Guatemala City, Thursday, June 26, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker\/Pool Photo via AP)<\/p>\n

Read More<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GUATEMALA CITY (AP) \u2014 Guatemala President Bernardo Ar\u00e9valo said Friday he has not signed an agreement with the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[18808,18806,1613,69,57,18807,18805,2399,1612,410,50,80,3676,67,370,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-20134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-asylum","9":"tag-bernardo-arvalo","10":"tag-central-america","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-guatemala","14":"tag-guatemala-city","15":"tag-kristi-noem","16":"tag-latin-america","17":"tag-marco-rubio","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-u-s-department-of-homeland-security","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-government","23":"tag-world","24":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114757549666744699","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}