Belize receives first trans­fers under safe third coun­try agree­ment

JAMAICA GLEANER- BELIZE HAS con­firmed the trans­fer of eight indi­vidu­als under its Exam­in­a­tion of Pro­tec­tion Requests agree­ment with the United States, mark­ing the first imple­ment­a­tion of the arrange­ment com­monly known as the Safe Third Coun­try Agree­ment.

In a state­ment, the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs and For­eign Trade said the eight people arrived in Bel­ize in July 2026, although it did not spe­cify the date.

“In full con­form­ity with the terms of the Agree­ment, eight indi­vidu­als were trans­ferred to Bel­ize in July 2026 – the first trans­fers car­ried out under its pro­vi­sions,” the min­istry said.

The trans­fers were over­seen jointly by the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs and For­eign Trade and the Min­istry of Immig­ra­tion, in line with pro­ced­ures out­lined in the agree­ment.

Accord­ing to the gov­ern­ment, all required reviews and clear­ances were com­pleted before the trans­fers took place.

“Before the trans­fers took place, national author­it­ies com­pleted all required reviews and clear­ances through estab­lished national and inter­na­tional mech­an­isms, con­sist­ent with Bel­ize’s due dili­gence pro­cess.”

Under the agree­ment, eli­gible third-coun­try nation­als seek­ing pro­tec­tion may be trans­ferred from the United States to Bel­ize on a case-by-case basis. The gov­ern­ment said each request is assessed indi­vidu­ally and that Bel­ize retains the author­ity to accept or reject any pro­posed trans­fer.

“The Gov­ern­ment of Bel­ize reaf­firms its com­mit­ment to imple­ment­ing the Agree­ment in accord­ance with domestic law and its inter­na­tional oblig­a­tions,” the min­istry said.

Bel­ize is among sev­eral CARICOM coun­tries engaged in dis­cus­sions with Wash­ing­ton regard­ing the accept­ance of third-coun­try nation­als.

Earlier this month, Anti­gua and Bar­buda’s par­lia­ment approved a res­ol­u­tion set­ting out the gov­ern­ment’s nego­ti­at­ing prin­ciples for any such agree­ment with the United States.

Prime Min­is­ter Gaston Browne told legis­lat­ors that his admin­is­tra­tion would not agree to accept crim­in­als in exchange for pre­serving visa arrange­ments.

“If we were faced with an option of not tak­ing crim­in­als and to have visa restric­tions, we’ll go for the visa restric­tions, because accept­ing crim­in­als will des­troy our coun­try,” Browne said.

He stressed, however, that nego­ti­ations with Wash­ing­ton had not included any require­ment for Anti­gua and Bar­buda to accept crim­inal offend­ers.

Browne said his gov­ern­ment would con­sider accept­ing indi­vidu­als whose only offence was a visa viol­a­tion, par­tic­u­larly if they pos­sess skills needed in the coun­try, includ­ing nurs­ing, spe­cial­ist med­ical and con­struc­tion expert­ise.

He also indic­ated that Anti­gua and Bar­buda would seek up to US$75,000 in sup­port for each third-coun­try national it agrees to receive, arguing that the coun­try’s high cost of liv­ing war­rants greater assist­ance than that reportedly offered to other par­ti­cip­at­ing states.

Under the agree­ment, eli­gible third­coun­try nation­als seek­ing pro­tec­tion may be trans­ferred from the United States to Bel­ize on a case-by-case basis. The gov­ern­ment said each request is assessed indi­vidu­ally and that Bel­ize retains the author­ity to accept or reject any pro­posed trans­fer.

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