US President Donald Trump says he is considering a "ban", tariffs and remittance fees after Guatemala decided not to ink a safe third country agreement that would have required the poor Central American country to take in more asylum seekers.
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"Guatemala ... has decided to break the deal they had with us on signing a necessary Safe Third Agreement. We were ready to go," Trump tweeted on Tuesday.
"Now we are looking at the 'BAN,' Tariffs, Remittance Fees, or all of the above. Guatemala has not been good," Trump wrote.
In response, Guatemala's President Jimmy Morales blamed the country's top court and political opponents for undermining his close ties to the United States.
Morales was due to sign a deal with Trump last week that would have made the country act as an asylum buffer zone to reduce immigration to the US.
Instead he cancelled the planned summit with Trump at the White House after the country's Constitutional Court ruled he could not ink such an agreement without prior approval from congress, which is on a summer recess.
"The Constitutional Court, without any understanding and without the right to interfere in foreign relations, wrongly took a stance against the national interest," Morales said in a statement posted on Facebook.
Trump has made restricting immigration a cornerstone of his presidency and re-election campaign. He has pushed Guatemala, Mexico and other countries in the region to act as buffer zones and take in asylum seekers who would otherwise go to the US.
Meanwhile a scant 35 people were taken into custody during a long-threatened US enforcement action that targeted more than 2100 immigrants who had been ordered deported, the head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said on Tuesday.
Trump described the action over the July 13 weekend, dubbed "Operation Border Resolve", as "very successful" even though much of the activity was not visible to the public.
The operation was originally scheduled for June for a dozen major US cities and was highly publicised, which likely contributed to the low rate of arrests, acting director of ICE Matthew Albence said on a call with reporters.
He described the operation as targeted against specific individuals who were in violation of the law, not raids.
"I guarantee you if we were doing raids, and we had officers running all over the place picking up targets indiscriminately, you would have videos all over YouTube," he said.
As word spread about the possible ICE operation, immigration rights groups circulated "know your rights" materials in immigrant communities and local activists advised people not to answer the door to agents without a warrant.
Albence said some operations were called off because their officers were "under surveillance".
Australian Associated Press
