Asylum Cooperative Agreements (ACAs) are bilateral arrangements under which one state transfers asylum seekers arriving at its border to a partner state, on the understanding that the partner will process their protection claims. The term entered common usage in 2019, when the United States under the first Trump administration signed ACAs with Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras — the so-called Northern Triangle countries — as part of a broader effort to reduce asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border.
ACAs are distinct from, though often conflated with, "safe third country" agreements such as the U.S.–Canada Safe Third Country Agreement (2002, in force 2004). Classical safe-third-country arrangements typically require that the transferred individual have a genuine connection to the receiving state (such as transit or residence). ACAs, by contrast, can apply even where the asylum seeker has never set foot in the receiving country, raising sharper legal and humanitarian concerns.
Critics, including UNHCR and human rights organizations, have argued that ACAs risk violating the principle of non-refoulement under Article 33 of the 1951 Refugee Convention if the receiving state lacks a functioning asylum system or cannot guarantee safety. The Guatemala ACA in particular was criticized because Guatemala itself produced significant numbers of asylum seekers and had limited capacity to adjudicate claims.
The Biden administration suspended the Northern Triangle ACAs in February 2021 shortly after taking office. The concept, however, remains influential in migration policy debates. Similar logic underpins proposals such as the United Kingdom's 2022 Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda, though that arrangement was structured differently and was ultimately ruled unlawful by the UK Supreme Court in R (AAA) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (November 2023) before being revived by legislation and then scrapped in 2024.
For MUN delegates, ACAs sit at the intersection of refugee law, sovereignty, regional burden-sharing, and extraterritorial processing debates.
Example
In July 2019, the United States and Guatemala signed an Asylum Cooperative Agreement allowing the U.S. to send non-Guatemalan asylum seekers to Guatemala to file claims there.
Frequently asked questions
Safe third country agreements usually require the asylum seeker to have transited or have ties to the receiving state. ACAs can apply without any such connection, transferring claimants to a country they have never visited.
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