The new unofficial, informal and undisclosed asylum externalisation and offshoring detention system of the US 

Guest post by Manuel Alejandro Núñez Ochoa. Manuel is a master’s graduate at the University of Sussex. His research is on migration and refugee studies. 

Since Donald Trump took office in January, there have been extreme and unlawful measures against migrants and asylum seekers, seeking to expel migrants and asylum seekers from the country. These included a group of measures focused on the unofficial and unlawful externalisation and off-shoring detention of refugees and asylum seekers. Off-shoring detention  is the practice of transferring asylum seekers to other nations or territories, where those individuals are held and/or their claims are processed; and carry out removals or deportations. Externalisation comprises measures that blockade asylum-seekers from reaching safe countries and claiming asylum, or the relocation of asylum-seekers and refugees to other countries without adequate protection. In February 2025, the US Secretary of State had bilateral meetings with Central American countries. In those meetings, the Trump administration agreed with Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico to send deportees with different nationalities to these countries. 

 The US is implementing an unofficial off-shoring migrant detention 

On 13 February 2025, a US military aircraft transported the relocation of approximately 300 migrants from Asia and Africa to Panama, including families and children. Most of the migrants’ documents were withheld by the authorities, and they were not informed of where they would be taken. Upon arrival in Panama, armed Panamanian National Aeronaval Service officers confined the migrants to a monitored hotel. Around 171 of them signed a declaration to be returned to their countries of origin. According to news outlets, host governments have assured the flights will be paid by the US government. On 28 February 2025, the Panamanian government transferred around 100 migrants from the hotel to a camp in the Darien area, near the border with Colombia. In this new facility, around 100 asylum seekers are held and monitored surrounded by fences and permanent monitoring by Panamanian Military personnel.  

Similarly, on 20 February 2025, the US administration deported 135 migrants to Costa Rica on a commercial flight; nearly 65 migrants that were deported on this commercial flight were children. The migrants were taken by bus to a temporary shelter facility in the border area between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Furthermore, on 16 March, the US administration sent 261 migrants to El Salvador; 238 of those migrants sent to El Salvador were Venezuelans. Donald Trump supported his decision in the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, claiming that the transferred migrants were alleged members of the ‘Tren de Aragua’ criminal gang. The migrants were transferred to the maximum security State prison in El Salvador called the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). One of the transferred migrants had refugee status in the US. 

The criminalisation of asylum seekers and refugees 

Other forms of off-shoring detention and externalisation measures, such as the agreements between the UK and Rwanda, Italy and Albania, and Australia and Nauru, have been publicly shared in their respective home countries and have even been approved by their national congresses. In contrast, he US administration has swiftly developed opaque, verbal, and non-public bilateral agreements with some Central American governments to avoid judicial and public scrutiny of human rights in US territory. For instance, the Trump administration is preventing sensitive issues in the public agenda, such as family detention, as occurred during his first administration. Furthermore, these measures allow the US government to perform pragmatic migration management actions against migration such as avoiding having to release inside the US an extensive number of migrant detained families after 20 days of being held in custody.  

Moreover, the US is deploying a discourse of criminalisation, depicting migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, especially Venezuelans, as ‘illegal’, ‘criminals’ and ‘gang members’ to justify and support penal actions against any sort of migration. The US government penalised all sorts of humanitarian migration even if this involved human rights violations and breaking the rule of law to circumvent human rights scrutiny in the US and at the same time, gain public and political support inside the US territory by achieving expedited goals and showing results in the detention of alleged criminals that in the discourse of the US administration would make safe America. 

The US administration criminalising discourse is used to justify the violations of due process and of fundamental human rights, mainly those in the 1951 Refugee Convention, such as article 31 and article 33 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), as asylum-seekers and refugees are portrayed as a threat to national security and criminals that do not deserve to have rights for migrating to the US. 

Additionally, to the US public, the transfer of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants to certain Central American countries depicts them as a burden that is released in other countries. The US government requested the third countries to respond quickly to the transfers as part of the process for the prompt removal of migrants. However, asylum seekers and refugees have not received an adequate response, which has resulted in the violation of their human rights. Particularly, Panama and Costa Rica have overwhelmed asylum systems and have restricted access for asylum seekers to lodge asylum applications. In El Salvador, transferred refugees and asylum seekers face arbitrary detention and risk suffering irreparable harm, including torture and ill-treatment. 

Conclusion

The US administration arranged off-shoring migrant detention and externalisation through undisclosed, informal, verbal, and non-public agreements to avoid the oversight of human rights by different actors and a review by other political powers in a democracy, such as the legislative and judicial powers. 

Furthermore, the US administration supports and justifies the criminal judicialisation of people in need of international protection based on the criminalised discourse towards refugees and asylum seekers. The US government use a criminalising discourse against Venezuelans to deter undocumented migrants, asylum seekers and refugees from arriving in the US by threatening them with imprisonment in a maximum-security prison in a third country, as the US administration considers entering the US without authorisation a terrorist and severe criminal act.  

Asylum seekers and refugees are left in limbo by third countries regarding the protection and access to international protection and human rights. Due to the political gains for the US administration, these measures can turn into a policy, leaving more refugees and asylum seekers’ families at risk of harm, torture and ill-treatment. Moreover, third countries are likely to remain passive regarding this policy until it becomes a domestic political issue. 

Any comments about this post? Get in touch with us! Send us an email, or find us on LinkedIn and BlueSky.