5. Department of Homeland Security · Notable
Reinstate Asylum Cooperative Agreements with Northern Triangle countries
Printed page 151 5. Department of Homeland Security
“Direct the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security to reinstate Asylum Cooperative Agreements with Northern Triangle Countries immediately.”
What has happened
- Partially done
An agreement with Guatemala relating to the transfer of nationals of Central American countries to Guatemala was effected by exchange of diplomatic notes on 2025-06-11 and 2025-06-13 and published by DHS. Two of the three Northern Triangle agreements are reinstated; nothing comparable has been published for El Salvador, which is why this stays `partial`. DHS has published parallel agreements with Uganda (2025-09-03) and Belize (2026-03-12) - outside the Northern Triangle and so outside this Quote.
- Partially done
The United States and Honduras signed an Agreement for Cooperation in the Examination of Protection Requests at Washington, amended by diplomatic notes exchanged at Tegucigalpa on 2025-06-25. DHS published the full text. One of the three Northern Triangle agreements the Trump administration signed in 2019 and the Biden administration suspended and terminated in 2021 is back.
- Attempted
EO 14165 section 8 directs the Secretary of State, with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, to facilitate international cooperation and agreements "including entering into agreements based upon the provisions of section 208(a)(2)(A) of the INA" - the safe-third-country provision Asylum Cooperative Agreements rest on. A direction to negotiate, with nothing signed yet.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
The Mandate names the Northern Triangle: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador. Honduras and Guatemala are done; El Salvador is not, so partial.
Negative search for El Salvador: Federal Register notices were searched for “protection requests” and “transfer of nationals” (five agreements in the window: Honduras, Guatemala, Uganda, Paraguay, Belize) and Federal Register full-text search for “Asylum Cooperative Agreement” over the window returns one document, an unrelated BIA procedures rule. No El Salvador agreement has been published.
Overlap: #358 (p. 149) is the Requires-Congress version of this ask - that Congress mandate the executive negotiate and honor ACAs - and stays attempted on EO 14165 section 8 alone.
- Action
- reinstate
- Object
- Asylum Cooperative Agreements with Northern Triangle countries
- ID
- 367