Guatemala's president denies new asylum deal with US

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemala President Bernardo Arévalo said Friday he has not signed an agreement with the United States to take asylum seekers from other countries, pushing back against comments from US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Noem and Arévalo met Thursday in Guatemala and the two governments publicly signed a joint security agreement that would allow US Customs and Border Protection officers to work in the capital's airport, training local agents how to screen for terrorism suspects.

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.

Asked about Noem's comments Friday during a news conference, Arévalo said that nothing new was signed related to immigration and that Guatemala was still operating under an agreement reached with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio 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.

Arévalo said that when Rubio visited, safe third country was discussed because Guatemala had signed such an agreement during US President Donald Trump's first term in office. But "we made it clear that our path was different," Arévalo said.

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 "solidarity."

The president's communications office said Noem had been given the ratification of the agreement reached through diplomatic notes weeks earlier.

During Trump's first term, the US signed such safe third-country agreements with Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. They effectively allowed the US to declare some asylum seekers ineligible to apply for US protection and permitted the US government to send them to those countries deemed "safe."

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