Article

The US seeks to remake cooperation on migration through bilateral agreements

View of CECOT prison in El Salvador.

Since taking office in January 2025, the US administration under President Donald Trump has undertaken a wide array of measures aimed at limiting immigration into the United States. The shooting of two national guard members, one of whom was killed, in Washington DC has reignited some of this rhetoric and led to new policies and suggestions, such as expanding the travel ban and pausing asylum applications.

One mechanism that the administration has used to advance its aims is to sign bilateral migration agreements with countries in Latin America and beyond. These measures form part of the recent US policies that restrict immigration, limit access to asylum and externalise migration management. To date, at least 58 countries have been approached to sign such agreements. At least ten have already been signed, including by Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Eswatini, Guatemala, Kosovo, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Uganda.

The agreements have proliferated quickly and through processes which are not particularly transparent. However, based on the available information, it is possible to categorise the agreements into three types: safe third country agreements, which provide for the removal of asylum seekers to countries other than their own that are considered safe so that they can seek protection there; broader third country deportation agreements, which allow for a wider range of immigrants to be deported to country’s other than their own and other cooperation agreements.

In this article, we dive into the characteristics of these agreements, their advantages and disadvantages for partner countries, and their implications for refugees and migrants.

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Although there is some divergence in the way that terms are used across national contexts and situations, “safe third country” agreements are generally premised on the notion that it is permissible to remove asylum seekers if they had, or might have, found protection elsewhere. They involve some form of formal treaty or bilateral pact where asylum seekers are required to seek protection in a designated third country considered “safe”, with that country assuming legal responsibility for their asylum claims.

Safe third country agreements are not new; they have been utilised since the 1990s in both Europe and the US. As for the EU, the safe third country concept has most recently been applied in the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum and its asylum procedure regulation.

The US has maintained safe third country agreements with Canada and countries in Central America. The US-Canada Safe Third Country Agreement was signed in 2002. That agreement required asylum seekers to make an application for asylum in the first of the two countries that they entered. However, currently, pressure is building on the Canadian government to renounce the agreement as advocates and legal cases increasingly argue that the US is no longer safe for refugees.

In 2019, during Donald Trump’s first term, the US signed safe third country agreements (STCA), also called “Asylum Cooperative Agreements (ACAs)” with the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, although only the last went formally into effect until it was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic and human rights concerns. However, unlike the Canada Agreement and most other applications of the safe third country principle, there was no requirement that deportees had to have transited through the country they were being deported to in order to be subject to the agreement, meaning that for instance “[a] Mexican national who was born within sight of the U.S. border could be flown thousands of miles away to Honduras and made to apply there.” In 2021, the Biden administration formally suspended the agreements.

After a visit to Central America in June 2025, US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed to have concluded a new set of STCAs with Guatemala and Honduras, despite both governments denying this.

In August 2025, the US concluded a “safe third country” agreement with Paraguay, allowing asylum seekers in the US to be processed in this Southern Cone country. Although complete information on the deal is not available, news reports seem to indicate that this agreement follows the model of the 2019 STCA with Guatemala, in that it does not require transit through the country.  In October, the US signed an STCA with Belize, apparently with content similar to the one signed with Paraguay.

The US signed a STCA with Ecuador in July, even though the agreement was only published in November. It foresees the transfer of third country nationals, who sought “international protection [in the US] against return to their home country or country of former habitual residence”, to Ecuador. The agreement explicitly excludes the transfer of unaccompanied minors. As part of the agreement, Ecuador committed itself to not return any individuals received under this agreement “to their home country or country of former habitual residence until a final decision has been made regarding any pending protection claims”. Previous declarations indicated that Ecuador may receive 300 refugees from the US under a STCA.

Other countries have entered into agreements with the US to accept deportations of third country nationals from the United States. These agreements are not referred to as safe third country agreements, although, given the widening of the meaning of safe third country agreements, the distinction is not entirely clear. It appears, however, that these agreements can apply more broadly, not only to individuals whose asylum applications are currently under consideration, but also to long-standing residents. As per data available by July 2025, the US  government has deported more than 8,000 people to countries other than their own.

As with safe third country agreements, the text may vary from country to country, and processes have not been fully transparent. Like safe third country agreements, deportations to third countries are not totally new. The UK sought to enter into an agreement with Rwanda to accept asylum seekers who would then have their protection claims adjudicated there, and other countries have used offshore processing. However, experts suggest that the current use of removals and offshoring is unprecedented for the US. As a Yale University researcher put it: “This is not a strategy that the United States government has used to any significant extent… especially to the extent where they’re removing people to war zones like South Sudan or Sudan, or to prisons, as they did with El Salvador.”

However, at least eight countries—Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Eswatini, Mexico, Panama, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Uganda —have agreed to accept non-national deportees. In July, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum reported that her country had already accepted more than 6,500 such deportees.

In August, Uganda agreed to accept migrants “who may not be granted asylum in the United States but are reluctant to or may have concerns about returning to their countries of origin.” Individuals with criminal records and unaccompanied minors are excluded.

Guatemala has also signed a deal to accept third country deportees, and received three Honduran nationals in October.

After an agreement that allowed the deportation of 200 non-nationals to Costa Rica in February, a group whose situation Costa Rica is still working to resolve, a new accord is reportedly under consideration. This agreement, modelled on one signed by the Biden administration with Panama in 2024, would lay out cooperation between Costa Rica and the US on the deportation of US-bound migrants, with Costa Rica carrying out the deportations and with the US providing funding and training.

Although it is difficult to categorise all agreements because some are not public, the other visible category of agreement relates to the sharing of information. On July 31, the US and Ecuador signed a bilateral agreement facilitating the exchange of information on suspected criminal offenders and illicit goods. A similar agreement signed with Chile the same week allows for the sharing of biometric data on potentially dangerous individuals seeking to enter the country. These agreements need to be viewed within the context of the US administration increasingly linking immigration and organised crime. Hence, while these are not explicitly migration-related agreements, they are likely to have implications for migration management as these lines continue to blur.

 Statements by high-ranking US government officials, such as US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, frame the deals as a form of burden-sharing, thereby reducing pressure on the US asylum system and allowing alternative options for refugees and migrants. These justifications fit in well with a new (and curtailed) vision of refugee protection being forwarded by the US administration. At UNGA, President Trump railed against the international refugee protection system, and on September 25, US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau outlined a new set of principles for asylum processes. One of these is “There is no right to immigrate or to receive asylum or refugee status in the country of an individual’s choice.” In this context, the administration appears to be seeking to create a patchwork of agreements that will allow it to argue that other forms of protection have been offered, thereby absolving itself of responsibility for refugee protection.  At times, however, the administration has taken a harsher and less polished line, presenting these deportations as a type of deterrence, in Rubio’s words, “the further away the better, so they can’t come back across the border.”

The negotiation of these agreements on a bilateral basis stands in stark contrast to Biden era efforts to create regional frameworks such as the LA Declaration; countries negotiating one-on-one with the United States are likely to be less able to assert their interest than when they are engaging collectively.

The agreements are also, to a certain extent, a practical response to the challenge of what happens to individuals who cannot generally be deported, either because of US restrictions on their return or because their countries will not accept them.

 Some of the countries with whom the US has sought to engage have faced domestic backlash for the agreements. In Uganda, which already hosts nearly two million refugees and has suffered notably from the cuts to US foreign aid programmes, which previously helped to feed and offer other critical services to those refugees, a Ugandan journalist said, “It’s a deal that helps relieve the US of its burden… but bears little for Uganda.” In Costa Rica, the national ombudsperson’s office has critiqued the government’s action in accepting the deportees, citing a lack of preparedness. In Peru, the government has refused to sign a similar agreement on the basis of existing backlash against Venezuelans.

In addition, partner governments face practical constraints in accepting asylum seekers and deportees. Costa Rica is still grappling with the consequences of having accepted third country nationals in February – some remain in a state facility. Many of the countries in question, including Mexico and Costa Rica, are already struggling with significant backlogs in their asylum processes, backlogs that are only growing as individuals unable to reach the US look for alternatives. Accepting either asylum seekers or refugees is only likely to increase the challenges to the migration management systems of these countries.

In addition, some of these countries, like Uganda (mentioned above) and Ecuador host a large number of refugees (Ecuador hosts nearly half a million). In this context, accepting deportees increases an already large population in need, straining systems with far fewer resources than are available in the United States. And this is coming at the same time as many organisations that offer services to refugees and asylum seekers are seeing their budgets cut.

On the other hand, it appears that the US is offering incentives to those who play along. El Salvador reportedly got $6 million dollars to accept and detain Venezuelan deportees. The New York Times reported that Rwanda got $100,000 to take a single Iraqi man. In the context of negotiations with Ecuador, announcements were made of $13.5 million to fight drugs and crime, and $6 million worth of drones for Ecuador’s navy.

Others have reportedly been threatened with worse tariff treatment, travel bans or barring of their diplomatic personnel if they don’t accept. Many of the 58 that have been approached to sign agreements are on the US visa ban list or are being considered for it. Might they be incentivised to participate to be taken, or stay, off the list?

For refugees and migrants, a range of risks is associated with these agreements.

First, the new frameworks sidestep key protections, increasing the risks that they might be deported to places where their lives or safety may be in danger. Serious violations of their rights have already been alleged by the Venezuelans detained in El Salvador. Amnesty International reports that of the thirteen countries to which deportations have been carried out, twelve were listed in the US State Department’s annual reports as having serious human rights problems. Some, such as South Sudan, are currently engaged in active conflict. Others, like Ecuador, are facing serious crime. Although many of the agreements include provisions that require the receiving country to consider the protection needs of individuals or refrain from returning them to their home countries, it is unclear whether these provisions will be followed.

Secondly, in many of these countries the systems for offering protection are under-resourced and overstretched, and may become even more so when they receive third country nationals. This could result in asylum seekers and deportees facing long waiting times, unclear status, and ultimately a lack of needed protection.

Even if their rights are not immediately threatened, integration may be a challenge. They may not speak the language, they may have no ties, and may have fewer opportunities either to access assistance or work opportunities due to the constrained environments of their hosts.

Overall, the new US approach to migration as a whole, and to bilateral agreements in particular, paints a worrying picture for refugees and migrants as well as for cooperation in the region.

The measures introduced since the beginning of the year have already limited refugees and migrants’ options. With the U.S. no longer being a viable destination for most, bilateral agreements further restrict refugees and migrants’ choices and constrain their rights. Capacity gaps, exacerbated by U.S. funding cuts, will make it difficult for partner countries to bear the burden imposed by these agreements. With that, the U.S. may be eroding protection for migrants not only within its own territory but potentially on a global scale.

Further, the nature of these agreements also reveals a great deal about the current state of regional cooperation on migration in Latin America. Although commitments (like those made under the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection) to promote regular pathways and to share responsibilities and coordinate at a regional level remain valid “on paper”, the rapid growth of bilateral agreements undermines these commitments. This occurs at a time when the need for regional cooperation to ensure the protection and rights of refugees and migrants is greater than ever. States in the region that remain committed to protecting the rights of refugees and migrants are more important than ever to ensure standards are maintained.