Paraguay

Transfers have not yet occurred under a 2025 U.S.-Paraguay agreement. On August 14, 2025 Paraguay signed a supposed “Safe Third Country Agreement” with the United States, under which asylum seekers in the United States would be transferred to Paraguay and permitted to seek protection through Paraguay’s National Commission for the Stateless and Refugees (CONARE).

The agreement is being challenged as part of the U.T. v. Bondi litigation on Asylum Cooperative Agreements (ACAs). An ACA is an agreement where the United States bars asylum seekers from applying for U.S. asylum and sends them to a third country to apply for protection there.  U.S. law governing “safe third country agreements” provides that asylum seekers cannot be sent to third countries for assessment of their asylum claims unless they would be safe from persecution and have access to full and fair asylum procedures. The current and former Trump administrations have repeatedly entered into ACAs – purportedly under the safe third country provision – with countries that do not meet these requirements. U.T. v. Bondi challenges the legality of several aspects of the ACAs, including a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 2019 interim final rule purporting to authorize the ACAs (ratified by DHS in 2025), DHS guidance implementing them, and designations finding that countries with which the United States has ACAs provide access to a “full and fair” asylum system. U.T. v. Bondi began as a challenge to ACAs during the first Trump administration as U.T. v. Barr.

It remains unclear whether the Paraguayan government is receiving direct financial support for its participation, though U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the two countries were “deepening cooperation across security, diplomatic, and economic fronts.”

Paraguay’s asylum system is still developing and has limited capacity due to a decline in funding along with staffing changes that have affected the frequency with which the commission that approves refugee claims can meet. There are few non-governmental organizations in Paraguay that can provide asylum seekers with legal assistance or humanitarian support. By the end of 2024, approximately 6,031 people were registered as refugees in the country, most of them from Venezuela and Cuba. Border areas remain affected by organized criminal groups linked to drug trafficking, raising concerns about the protection environment for transferred asylum seekers.