 Good morning everyone or good afternoon, depending on where in the world that you're calling from today I will just share my screen with you all and chair Please let me know if there's any problems with sharing this screen I'm very pleased to be part of today's panel discussion on Human rights due diligence and risks and to be sharing with you the findings from a report that was prepared by Georgetown University's Human Rights Institute The report is prepared by myself five other students and three adjunct professors and as the chair has mentioned already The focus our report is the recent asylum cooperative agreement between the US and Guatemala, which has been implemented since November 2019 So this agreement or the ACA as I will refer to it is a safer country agreement Which of course of for the purpose of burden sharing and cooperation on asylum clients So under this agreement the US has restricted access to asylum for a specified cohort of asylum seekers and at this stage it is for asylum seekers from Honduras and from El Salvador Pursuant to the agreement that cohort will then be redirected and removed to Guatemala to seek asylum there So the purpose of our report was to assess the legality of this agreement under international law Like we know that safe so country agreements are not illegal at international law However states still have to uphold the international human rights law obligations and for the US and Guatemala Who are both parties to refugee convention cat and ICC PR those obligations continue to apply So we assessed the ACA against those standards, but also against the US's own domestic legal standards requiring the US to fulfill two particular Limbs in order for safer country agreements to be legal and in the context of the Guatemala ACA The first limb is that asylum seekers cannot be removed to Guatemala If they remove will be in violation of the non-reformant obligation The second requirement for a safer country agreement to be legal at US law Is that the asylum seeker must have access to a full and fair procedure To determine their claim for asylum in Guatemala and regarding this limb the UNHCR has Guidance on how states can act consistently with the international human rights obligations in agreeing safer country agreements So in order to make this assessment of International and domestic legality and human rights impacts of this agreement our research methodology included Reviewing Guatemala's asylum laws as they appear on the books And also looking at the legal and policy changes that the US has made to implement the ACA at their end And then following the implementation of the agreement in November 2019 a research team traveled to Guatemala City in January where we conducted 50 interviews over the course of a week Including with Guatemalan officials as to how the asylum process operates in practice in Guatemala But also with 25 of the 72 asylum seekers who were transferred pursuant to the ACA that week that we were there And what was interesting about the timing of our trip is it coincided with an increase in the number of people who were being Transferred pursuant to the agreement prior to us arriving 52 people in total had been transferred and now 823 people have been transferred from the US to Guatemala to seek asylum there So today, unfortunately, I don't have time to share all of the findings from our report But I wanted to highlight four particular findings that came from our review of the law But also from the testimonies that we received from the people that we interviewed including asylum seekers who have been affected by this Agreement and I'll break those findings into two stages The first two findings relates to what happens in the US when asylum seekers have left Honduras or El Salvador Arrived in the US and tried to seek asylum there and then go through a process of assessing whether they can be removed to Guatemala The third and fourth findings then relate to what happens when asylum seekers are put on a plane and Remove to Guatemala and the next steps there So the first finding that I wanted to share is that US law and policy changes to implement the ACA Inadequate in terms of screening for potential risks of violations of non-reformant And there's three key reasons for this The first is that the process is establishing a burden and standard of proof that is very high for asylum seekers to meet Asylum seekers must in order to be to avoid removal to Guatemala They must show that it is more likely than not that they will face torture or persecution on refugee convention grounds in Guatemala Now this is a very high standard on its own It's particularly problematic in line of our second finding which is that US requirements are not always being followed legal requirements. That is And that means that asylum seekers who are needing to meet this very high threshold often are not aware that they're being removed to Guatemala So they need to show risk of something occurring Guatemala without knowledge that they're being transferred them This problem is compounded by two further features of the ACA specific process The first feature is that the process in the US implementing the agreement removes the right of asylum seekers to have access to council Both consultants council will have them present during the assessment process and they're not provided an opportunity to present evidence in order to meet this threshold And then once the determination has been made that the asylum seeker has not met the threshold and will be removed to Guatemala That process is not appealable So the second finding that I already highlighted is that there are some requirements in US law that are designed to screen for the risk of refailing asylum seekers in their removal to Guatemala One of the key features is asylum seekers are meant to be presented with a notice that they are going to Guatemala And if they have a reason to fear removal to Guatemala, they must raise that fear with an asylum officer However, what we heard from the asylum seekers we interviewed Is that most of them are unaware they're going to Guatemala. This is in violation of this legal requirement One asylum seeker was presented with a written notice and when we spoke to her she had that written notice with us and showed it to us It was in English and included a lot of very technical legal jargon, but she was a Spanish speaker and did not read English So this is creating a standard where it is always very difficult for asylum seekers to Avoid removal to Guatemala if they may face a reputable harm there But then the process not being followed is created further barriers and further difficulties for asylum seekers to assert their rights To life to be free from torture and the other rights guaranteed in the conventions that the US and Guatemala are party to And we also heard other problematic Things about what's occurring at the US and which I don't have time to share with you today But in summary what we heard from asylum seekers is the information They're given or the lack of information is making them very confused about where they're going and why they're being removed from the US To Guatemala So let's look at what's happening on the Guatemala's end, which is equally problematic Asylum seekers being removed and they're arriving in Guatemala and keep in mind They are arriving after being in detention for many weeks We also heard patterns of asylum seekers being working up frequently Including in the middle of the night to be transferred between facilities or to review paperwork So asylum seekers are arriving and they're exhausted. They're disoriented and often it's their first knowledge that they're arriving in Guatemala They then have a reception process which is very problematic Because it is imbalanced towards encouraging them to go back to their country that they've fled from in the first place And the first thing that happens is they are received at the military airport And receive a verbal briefing and in this briefing is emphasised that they have 72 hours in order to make the decision about their next steps And in the context of the 72 hour time frame Asylum seekers are told that they can take a free ride home with the IOM Or they can go home on their own money They're given written information about how to access a free ride with the IOM In contrast, they're not given any written information about their right to seek asylum in Guatemala Or what they would do in order to try to start the process if they chose to take that option One asylum seeker Marie Victoria told us that she asked about applying for asylum in Guatemala and she was told it would be a lot of paperwork So we spoke to her at a time where she was waiting to take the free IOM back to her home country Honduras And we asked her if she felt that this was a voluntary return And she said that she felt like she had no choice even though she feared for her safety in Honduras And was planning to leave again immediately in order to try to seek asylum in Spain So obviously this reception process is very problematic and that's borne out in the numbers Of the 820 plus asylum seekers who've been returned to Guatemala Only six have applied for asylum in Guatemala So in my final time remaining I wanted to highlight our fourth finding Which relates to what happens if an asylum seeker who is removed to Guatemala under the ACA Does try to seek asylum there And our finding perhaps unsurprisingly is that there is no access to a full and fair asylum procedure in Guatemala Which you might recall is one of the limbs of a requirement for a safe third country agreement under US law There are many reasons for this that unfortunately I don't have the time to get into today. So I will just highlight two There are gaps both in the asylum laws how they appear on paper But there are also implementation gaps in terms of what is actually happening in practice And this was borne out from the interviews we had with Guatemala Officials and also with NGOs who are trying to support asylum seekers through the process A common theme to us Which was very concerning was Guatemala and officials who are responsible for the asylum process Themselves very confused about what that process looks like So this of course in terms of what an asylum seeker Needs to learn in order to go through the process is very concerning another point that I just wanted to highlight was That the body that's ultimately responsible for approving affirmative asylum cases in Guatemala is composed of the vice president The foreign minister and other senior ministers and that's not the delegates. That's the ministers themselves Who do not have expertise in asylum cases themselves But also have never met So there's a huge backlog of asylum claims and asylum seekers who do choose to try to Apply for asylum in Guatemala are facing very lengthy time frames In order to potentially be granted a refugee status in Guatemala Whilst having very limited means to support themselves and their family throughout this process So I just wanted to summarize By noting that at this moment because of the COVID-19 pandemic Guatemala has opted to suspend the agreement and they're currently not receiving transfers of asylum seekers from the US pursuant to the ACA Now our argument and the recommendations that we'll be making in our report, which we'll be publishing mid-year is that this agreement should be terminated because Under this agreement it makes it almost impossible for this cohort of asylum seekers to adequately safeguard their rights pursuant to international human rights law However, if the agreement isn't terminated Serious changes need to be made in the way that this agreement is being implemented both on the US side and in Guatemala To ensure that we mitigate against the risk of asylum seekers being removed to a place potentially in violation of the non-reformant obligation But also to ensure that asylum seekers do have access in some country somewhere To a process for determining their asylum claims. So thank you and I look forward to questions if you have them