Guatemala Court, Obama Judge Double Down Against Asylum Programs



Within days of each other, a Guatemalan court and a U.S. judge scuttled “safe third country” asylum initiatives that could have stemmed the tide of migrants heading to America’s southern border.

Guatemala’s Constitutional Court, after deliberating 2 ½ hours on Sunday, voted 4-1 to bar President Jimmy Morales from designating his nation a safe third country for asylum seekers. As the primary southern gateway into Mexico, Guatemala is a crucial transit corridor for northbound migrants.

The agreement would have been similar to one the U.S. has with Canada.

“The Constitutional Court, without any understanding and without the right to interfere in foreign relations, wrongly took a stance against the national interest,” Morales said afterward.

President Donald Trump registered similar disgust, tweeting: “Guatemala … has decided to break the deal they had with us on signing a necessary safe third agreement. We were ready to go.”

RELATED: Guatemalan Senior Official Admits Benefits in U.S., Mexico Are Incentives To Leave

Trump then encountered legal obstacles of his own when U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar blocked an administration rule that would have required people seeking asylum to apply first in one of the countries they cross en route to the U.S.

Sitting in San Francisco, Tigar, appointed by former President Barack Obama, reversed D.C. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee, who had denied requests for an injunction just hours earlier.

So, it’s back to square one. With Mexico stonewalling consideration of a safe third country agreement there, the Guatemalan government has not indicated what steps, if any, it might take next. In Washington, it’s business as usual: doing nothing and going nowhere, while the humanitarian and security crisis at America’s southern border only gets worse.

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3 Comments

  1. avatar

    Shine the Truth Flashlight in the Open Border Party Rats’ Red Eyes

    They hate that “truth” label BTW. Rats show teeth and claws when cornered too.

  2. avatar

    For a lot of people the issue of judges has become one of the main reasons for voting against Democrats. Tax policies can be changed. An overpopulated country, and we are already past that, cannot. Open border advocates, and that’s what they are, know that they can run to some Democratic appointed judge and overturn any border control measures. Apparently Guatemala has decided to carry on with the Trump agreement. Of course Trump had to threaten them with fiscal consequences, which naturally has the left swooning. But nothing else is working and Congress has abandoned any responsibility for stopping this invasion.

    On the good side the Supreme Court has said Trump can use emergency funds to build the wall. Naturally it was conservative judges against liberal judges. But if this not an emergency then what is? Among the points the government made was that drugs are flowing in massive amounts across the open parts of the border while the border patrol is entirely tied up with asylum cases. Various environmental organizations also joined the actions against Trump. But no one thing has done more damage to the fragile desert environment than the mass movement of illegals through sensitive areas, which has been going on for decades.

    Not to mention there are natural areas in this country that have signs warning visitors not to stray from main roads because of drug cartel activity. Essentially the cartels control large areas north of the border. But we don’t need a wall, barrier? Somehow the Democrats agreed with the idea in 2006, including Schumer, Obama, Hillary, Biden when they voted for 700 miles of double layer fence.

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