In recent times, with the emergence of cases related to “being sent to Uganda to apply for asylum,” many Chinese individuals seeking asylum have been very concerned about whether the United States has only signed asylum cooperation agreements with Uganda or if there are other cooperating countries that have not been widely publicized.
From an institutional perspective, the answer can be summarized in two sentences: Uganda is not the first applicable country, and it is also unlikely to be the last; more importantly, the Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA) itself is not a fixed “list of countries system,” but rather a legal tool with high administrative flexibility that can adjust its scope of application according to policy orientation.
Understanding the ACA does not lie in which countries are currently involved, but in how the system itself is designed, implemented, and expanded.
The so-called Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA) is not a permanent list of countries in immigration law, but rather a bilateral or multilateral cooperation mechanism based on administrative law authorization. The core legal basis comes from Section 208(a)(2)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which allows the United States, under specific conditions, to refuse asylum applications and transfer applicants to a “third country that can provide asylum procedures.”
Therefore, what is truly decisive is not the number of countries involved, but whether the following institutional conditions are met: whether the executive branch chooses to activate the mechanism, whether substantial cooperation arrangements are completed with specific countries, whether it is made applicable through federal-level documents, and whether it is actually invoked and implemented in immigration court proceedings.
Looking at publicly available Federal Registers, Department of Homeland Security documents, and practical cases, countries associated with the ACA can generally be categorized into three levels.
The first category includes countries that have formally signed and implemented cooperation agreements in practice. The most representative example is Guatemala. In 2019, the United States completed an ACA with Guatemala, and it was briefly implemented during the first term of the Trump administration; some non-Guatemalan asylum applicants were required to be transferred to that country for protection.
Recently, Uganda has sparked significant attention. According to motions filed by the DHS with immigration courts and related administrative documents, the United States has reactivated the ACA arrangement with Uganda and has asserted its application in individual cases. This also marks the first clear extension of the ACA system to an African country, demonstrating that geographical distance no longer poses a limitation on the institutional level.
The second category includes countries that have signed or publicly announced cooperation frameworks but have not been fully implemented. During the first term of the Trump administration, the United States also reached ACA-related arrangements with Honduras and El Salvador, but their practical application was very limited and has been essentially frozen in the Biden administration era. It is important to note that these types of agreements are not permanently invalid in administrative law but may be reactivated or replaced by new arrangements according to policy directions.
The third category consists of countries that function under the “safe third country” rule but are not part of the ACA framework, with Canada being the most representative. The “Safe Third Country Agreement” between the United States and Canada differs from the ACA in legal basis and procedural design, but similarly restricts asylum seekers’ choice of application location, reflecting the long-standing acceptance in the United States of the idea that “asylum locations can be restricted.”
Compared to 2019, the recently reactivated ACA shows three significant changes.
Firstly, the scope is no longer limited to neighboring or major transit countries. The Uganda case illustrates that the third country does not have to border the United States or be a country where applicants have resided long-term.
Secondly, there is a noticeable increase in the importance placed on the “theoretical feasibility” by the executive branch. The DHS’s argumentation has shifted from actual residency experiences to whether applicants can be “sent to” that country under the system.
Thirdly, there has been significant simplification on the procedural level. In practice, when the DHS argues that the ACA applies, it often does not require a full asylum hearing but can be handled through a Pretermit motion in a relatively brief proceeding.
From an administrative law perspective, as long as the executive branch completes substantive cooperation arrangements, establishes citable documents at the federal level, and recognizes that the relevant country can provide asylum procedures, the United States has the legal space to expand the ACA’s scope of application. Therefore, the real institutional risk lies not in the current list of named countries but in whether the applicant’s immigration route provides a link to a third country that can be utilized within the institutional structure.
In practice, some common misconceptions among Chinese asylum seekers include believing that non-citizens of a particular country are not affected, short-term stays are insignificant, not applying for asylum in a third country carries no consequences, or not being deported equals safety. However, the criteria of the ACA have never been based on the applicant’s subjective understanding but rather on whether the system allows the executive branch to make the corresponding assertions.
The ACA is not a static list of countries but a highly administrative system tool that can adjust its scope according to policy changes. For Chinese asylum seekers, what is genuinely necessary to understand is not which countries are currently involved but whether they have fallen within the institutional structure where the ACA can be applicable.
(This article is for general legal information and is not specific legal advice for any individual case; the applicability of the ACA and the range of countries may change with administrative policies and international arrangements, and the actual results in practice should be based on the latest official documents and case procedures.)