During President Trump’s first term the U.S. signed “asylum cooperative agreements” with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (“the Northern Triangle countries”) that allow the U.S. to send asylum seekers to these countries and bar them from applying for protection in the U.S. You can see more about the original implementation of these agreements on the DHS website. The Biden administration suspended these agreements once he took office but then Trump was elected to second term as president and on July 2025, DHS published in the Federal Register the “Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Honduras for Cooperation in the Examination of Protection Requests.”

The agreement provides for Honduras to process protection requests, such as for asylum or temporary protection, for some “protection applicants” the U.S. Government sends to Honduras after they request protection in the U.S. The agreement does not apply to nationals of Honduras, stateless habitual residents of Honduras, unaccompanied minors, or people who arrived in the U.S. with a valid visa or visa waiver (90 FR 30076, 7/8/25). The full text of the Federal Register is below.

The Board of Immigration Appeals has issued a decision in Matter of C-I-G-M- & L-V-S-G-, 29 I&N Dec. 291 (BIA 2025) regarding these agreements. The Board’s decision was:

(1) If the Department of Homeland Security claims that an asylum cooperative agreement bars a respondent from applying for asylum in the United States, the Immigration Judge should determine whether the safe third country bar applies prior to and separate from considering a respondent’s eligibility for asylum.

(2) A respondent subject to the terms of an asylum cooperative agreement has the burden to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that he or she will more likely than not be persecuted on account of a protected ground or tortured in the relevant third country to avoid application of the safe third country bar and for the respondent to be eligible to seek asylum and other protection claims in the United States.

“Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Honduras for Cooperation in the Examination of Protection Requests.”