UPDATE 4-"Outsourcing" asylum: U.S. sends Guatemala first Honduran migrant in new plan

The first foreign asylum-seeker arrived in Guatemala on Thursday from El Paso, Texas, under a U.S. agreement that establishes it as a safe third country to process people fleeing persecution in their homelands. The program, similar to European ones that push asylum seekers to Turkey, is a policy achievement for U.S. President Donald Trump. He has made cracking down on immigration a central plank of his 2020 election campaign.

Democrats and activists say it is irresponsible to send vulnerable people to seek shelter in Guatemala, with its high murder rates, a tiny asylum system, and weak rule of law. Guatemalan Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart said his government would process anybody who wanted to apply for asylum in his country, but noted that the United Nation's immigration and asylum agencies would be responsible for providing shelter during their stay.

Degenhart previously told Reuters he expected some of the returnees would go home to El Salvador and Honduras. The U.N. International Organization for Migration said on Wednesday the United States had provided it with $10 million to help migrants voluntarily return from Guatemala to their home countries. Degenhart said more flights carrying foreign asylum seekers were expected next week, but that the United States had not said how many would be returned.

The new effort began after the Trump administration brokered an agreement with the Guatemalan government in July. The deal allows U.S. immigration officials to force migrants requesting asylum at the U.S.-Mexican border to apply for asylum in Guatemala first. Trump's administration has worked to restrict asylum access in the United States to curb the number of mostly Central American families arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.

U.S. officials earlier this week said the program initially would be applied in El Paso. A first phase will target adults from Honduras and El Salvador and the aim will be to process them within 72 hours, according to the officials and notes taken by one of the officials during a training session of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officers.

Critics contend asylum seekers will face danger in Guatemala, where the murder rate is five times that of the United States, according to 2017 data compiled by the World Bank. Refugees International, a charity, has said Trump is "outsourcing" asylum to a country from which more than 100,000 fled to seek U.S. asylum last year. Guatemalan President-elect Alejandro Giammattei, who takes office in January, has said he will review the agreement.