Original Date Announced

DHS published an agreement with Honduras under which certain non-Honduran migrants who seek asylum or other humanitarian protection in the U.S. may be removed to Honduras to seek protection there. Under the agreement, the United States will determine protection requests for individuals determined by the U.S. to be unaccompanied minors or individuals who arrived in the U.S. with a valid visa or admission document or who were not required to have a visa to enter the U.S. The agreement between the countries was signed in March 2025 and amended in June 2025 to clarify that it will apply retroactively to individuals who seek protection in the U.S. before the date the agreement enters into force, and not just to those who seek protection on or after the agreement goes into effect.

For additional information regarding the 2019 Asylum Cooperative Agreement between the U.S. and Honduras, please see this Trump 1.0 entry.

Third Country Deportation Watch provides detailed updates on this agreement.

Trump 2.0 [ID #1853]

Subsequent Trump and Court Action

2025.10.01 Reported: Honduras accepts third-country deportations - Third Country Deportation Watch

According to the Third Country Deportation Watch, Honduras has been accepting deportations of third-country nationals from the United States outside the scope of the Asylum Cooperative Agreement described above.

The Third Country Deportation Watch explains that the United States deported more than 90 Guatemalans to Honduras from October 2025 to March 2026. In May or June 2026, Honduras also began accepting Mexican nationals outside the safe third country agreement, receiving 165 people by mid-July and another 37 individuals in Mid-August.

Subsequent Trump and Court Action

2026.01.13 Amended Complaint - Caballero-Arauz v. Bondi

Caballero-Arauz, a national of Panama seeking asylum, filed an amended complaint against the Trump administration to challenge the Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA) with Honduras and the interim final rule and related policies concerning ACAs. DHS had filed a motion to pretermit Caballero-Arauz’s asylum application, seeking her removal to Honduras under the ACA described in this entry. The plaintiff asserts that the application of the Honduras ACA to her contravenes the safe third country provision of the INA, constitutes arbitrary and capricious action, and would deprive her of statutory and constitutional rights. It further alleges that the government has issued a designation categorically finding that Honduras has a “full and fair” asylum process, and that this designation is contrary to law, arbitrary and capricious, and precludes required individualized, case-specific determinations. Finally, the plaintiff asserts that the pretermission violates her Fifth Amendment rights, including the right to notice, the right to present evidence, and the right to a full and fair hearing. Caballero-Arauz v. Bondi, No. 1:25-cv-15665 (N.D. lll.).

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