The Trump administration is aggressively engaging Latin America in the hemispherical implementation of a "safe third country" immigration policy that is increasingly reliant on foreign cooperation in order to curb the flow of asylum seekers arriving at its southern border.

The latest example came Friday when the U.S. struck a deal with the new Salvadoran administration of Nayib Bukele to send back migrants who cross El Salvador on their journey north and extend refuge to migrants returned by the U.S., as detailed in an agreement obtained by Reuters.

Both U.S. President Donald Trump and Bukele are set to meet on Wednesday to discuss details of the agreement, including the possibility of requiring Cuban migrants to seek refuge in El Salvador first before reaching the U.S., while the U.S. government would in turn help El Salvador expand its underdeveloped asylum system.

A similar deal was reached with the outgoing Guatemalan administration of President Jimmy Morales in July after Trump threatened to impose economic sanctions. The impoverished Central American nation would become a so-called "safe third country" pending congressional approval, requiring undocumented migrants en route to the U.S. to seek refuge there first.

"Asylum infrastructure in Guatemala and other parts of the region is still under development. So the number of individual asylum-seekers who can be received and processed with adequate protection guarantees is still limited," said William Spindler, senior external engagement coordinator for Latin America at the United Nations' refugee agency UNHCR.

Remain in Mexico

Mexico has so far rejected becoming a "safe third country" despite similar tariff threats. It has agreed instead to receive deported migrants to resolve their asylum cases in Mexico, in what is formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, or the "remain in Mexico" policy.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan recently described the MPP as a program that "discourages the abuse and exploitation of U.S. laws and non-meritorious or false asylum claims."

CBP said it has so far returned more than 42,000 people to Mexico under the MPP since its implementation in January.

The Mexican government also deployed 10,000 National Guard troops to its southern border and 15,000 to its northern border in June, and helped the U.S. apprehend over 134,000 undocumented immigrants so far this year, up from 83,000 in 2018.    

"The government of Mexico has taken meaningful and unprecedented steps to help curb the flow of illegal immigration to our border," said Morgan during a White House briefing two weeks ago. "[But] We need Mexico to do more."

Legal challenges

These policies have not gone unchallenged. In July, a federal judge out of California issued an injunction against the MPP, later to be lifted by the U.S. Supreme Court in September. 

Last week a group of migrant mothers filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government over the recent asylum ban, saying the government has enacted changes without warning, resulting in elevated rejection rates for asylum-seekers.

Policy side effects

Pressuring its neighbors to do more means a greater strain on their resources, which immigrant advocacy groups argue aren't sufficient to ensure the safety of migrant families fleeing poverty and violence in their countries.

"Closing avenues for safe passage at the border has not prevented unauthorized crossing but rather has made them more deadly," read a statement by La Union del Pueblo Entero, a pro-immigrant organization based in south Texas, about recent deaths of children and parents crossing the U.S.-Mexico border through the Rio Grande.

Earlier this month a Honduran mother and son drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande after allegedly being returned by U.S. authorities to Mexico and made to wait their turn to request asylum. The incident follows a similar case in June of a Salvadoran father and son found dead in the reeds of the same river.

"This rule denies people a meaningful chance to seek asylum, putting the lives of asylum seekers back in the hands of their persecutors, including transnational gangs and cartels," said Benjamin Johnson, Executive Director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). 

Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan acknowledged the migrant push factors driving people out of Central America during a speech Monday at the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington.

"There are a number of reasons for the fundamental shifts in migration patterns, but at the core, the push factors for migration are predicated on a stark economic opportunity gap, exacerbated by poverty and food insecurity, with continued high-levels of violence in some areas of Central America," he said.

McAleenan praised the MPP program saying it's allowing asylum seekers to get initial hearings within three to five months, instead of the pre-MPP average of two years.

"We are working to build capacity to extend asylum protections in partner countries in the region and ensure that those who need protections from persecution for political, racial, religious, or social group membership can seek them as close to home as possible, without putting themselves or their family in the hands of dangerous smugglers," added McAleenan. 

Ironically, this regional approach keeps asylum seekers in some of the most unsafe countries in the world. Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador all rank among the top 25 least safe countries, according to the latest World Economic Forum report.

After multiple presidential directives, McAleenan believes these measures will finally allow Trump to deliver on a campaign promise to put an end to a practice deemed "catch-and-release," where undocumented migrants, namely family units, are released to the interior pending an asylum hearing as required by law.

These stopgap measures are yielding results in favor of the Trump administration, to which it attributes a 56 percent decline in southwest border undocumented migrant apprehensions from its peak in May.

A temporary fix

McAleenan is reportedly lobbying Panama and Brazil with the same "safe third country" approach in an effort to keep a small but growing number of asylum seekers from South America, Africa and Asia. However, no agreements have been announced.

Reliance on foreign governments to help stop the flow of irregular migration is an unsustainable policy, noted McAleenan, as it depends on the continued cooperation from a revolving door of administrations. 

Such is the case of Guatemala, where President-elect Alejandro Giammattei, a conservative who won overwhelming support in an August runoff election, told the Associated Press Guatemala's migrant deal with the U.S. won't work because his country is too poor to tend to its own people, let alone those from other countries.

While the Trump administration seeks to eliminate the push factors, officials are repeatedly blaming Congress for flaws in the U.S. immigration system as the main pull factor that has extended the humanitarian crisis at the southwest border.

"We are still at crisis levels in illegal crossings at the Southwest Border, and until we change the fundamental laws governing our immigration system, we won't solve the underlying problem," said McAleenan.

But instead of expanding that legal framework, Trump's critics say the administration's policies are aimed at limiting them.