The United States and Ecuador are in the final stages of establishing an agreement that would allow the United States to send asylum seekers to the country, a senior State Department official said Thursday.
“It’s not 100 percent finished,” the official said, adding that the so-called Safe Third Country Agreement must go through the standard operating procedures involving the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.
The issue was discussed on Thursday during the visit of the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to Ecuador.
It is evaluated on a case-by-case basis, the official said, adding that there are no plans to send a specific quota of asylum seekers to Ecuador. He said this is part of the general relationship between the two countries.
“We have many differences in our relationship, and it is not a quid pro quo,” the source said, noting that the new U.S. security assistance for Ecuador announced during Rubio’s trip was not linked to a specific number of people who could be deported to the country as part of a safe third country agreement.
There are no current plans for the Trump administration to reach an agreement with Ecuador similar to that it had with El Salvador, which would involve a transfer of suspected gang members, according to the official.
Regarding the fight against violent crime and drug trafficking in Ecuador, the official said that the country is intensifying its efforts. Gangs, drugs, and threats to public safety continue to proliferate in the country, but the official believes there are legitimate efforts to address the problem.
“We have a government that is now fully committed to trying to break the control that these gangs and cartels had over the country,” the official said.
Rubio praised Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, on Thursday, whom he acknowledged as a willing partner who has done more to confront drug traffickers in his country than any other administration in the past.
While the United States is working with Ecuador and other Latin American countries to combat drug trafficking, it is concerned that judges, prosecutors, and police officers are corrupted or intimidated by gangs in the region. That is why he is also working to update his extradition treaty with Ecuador, which would allow the country to send more drug traffickers to the United States to be tried.
Earlier on Thursday, Rubio announced that the U.S. State Department is assigning two Ecuadorian criminal groups as foreign terrorist organizations.
The designations of the gangs, Los Lobos and Los Choneros, bring with them all kinds of options in the United States to work together with the government of Ecuador in the future to end these groups, Rubio said in the country’s capital, Quito.
Rubio indicated that the designations not only allow the United States to impose sanctions but also mean that it can share intelligence with Ecuador, which can be used for potentially lethal operations.
Rubio also announced that the United States will contribute US$13.5 million to help Ecuador improve its capacity to provide security to its citizens and combat drug trafficking and crime. The United States will also provide another $6 million in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for the Ecuadorian Navy.
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