Say No to Senate Ratification of the U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement

By: Omar Silva I Editor/Publisher

📰 National Perspective Belize

www.nationalperspectivebz.com

Belize City: Wednesday 22nd October 2025

EDITORIAL

On October 21, 2025, the Government of Belize made a quiet yet seismic move: it signed away part of our national sovereignty by entering into a Safe Third Country agreement with the United States—a superpower that no longer wishes to deal with its own asylum backlog and has chosen, once again, to outsource its humanitarian burden to smaller, dependent nations.

The deal was signed by Foreign Minister Francis Fonseca and U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Katharine Beamer, without any parliamentary debate, public disclosure, or national consultation. This is not democracy. This is not diplomacy.

❗ This is compliance by compulsion.

It is now up to the Senate of Belize to decide whether to ratify this betrayal of the Belizean people.

We say: They must not.

🇧🇿 A Country Unprepared, A People Overburdened

Belize is not prepared for this agreement—not socially, economically, legally, nor ethically.

• 🏚️ Housing: Thousands of Belizeans still rent crowded rooms or sleep in makeshift structures. The promised wave of housing under Plan Belize 2.0 never came.
• 🏥 Healthcare: Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital and regional facilities routinely lack basic medications. Patients are handed prescriptions and told to beg for help.
• 🎓 Education: Schools remain under-resourced. The promised University Hospital—sold as a beacon of medical education—was pure political vapor.
• 🍞 Cost of Living: What cost $40 in groceries in 2020 now costs $150. Meanwhile, minimum wage reform remains an empty promise.

And yet this same government dares to accept an international obligation to receive asylum seekers rejected by the U.S., a nation of over 330 million people, while Belize—barely 400,000 strong—is buckling under its own burdens.

🌎 The 1951 Convention is Not a Blunt Weapon

The government defends this move by invoking the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees, claiming it reflects Belize’s commitment to international humanitarian law.

But let’s be clear: The Geneva Convention is 76 years old—conceived in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust. It was never intended to become a pressure tool used by the world’s largest economies to shift their social and migration responsibilities onto weaker nations.

The United States no longer practices what it preaches. It signs deals with El Salvador, Uganda, and Rwanda—nations with fragile institutions—to dump deportees and unprocessed migrants in exchange for strategic favours.

And now, Belize has joined that list.

This is not about compassion. This is about outsourcing. This is about dodging responsibility.

And worst of all, it is about Belize saying “yes” without asking its people.

📜 A Deal Without Consent Is a Deal Without Legitimacy

The most unforgivable aspect of this agreement is not just its content—but its process.

• No public debate.
• No legislative scrutiny.
• No town halls.
• No civil society engagement.

What happened to transparency?

What happened to participatory democracy?

We are now expected to believe that this is a win for Belize, simply because we have a “veto” over who is accepted. But ask yourself: When have we ever truly stood up to the U.S. in such deals and exercised that veto?

This isn’t a bilateral partnership. This is colonial compliance in modern clothing.

⚠️ The Senate Must Reject This Deal

The Senate of Belize, though weakened by executive domination, still retains the legal power to stop this agreement from becoming law.

This editorial calls on:

• The Senators representing the Churches, the Trade Unions, the Business Sector, and the Opposition,
• And the wider Belizean public,

To demand full disclosure, formal debate, and ultimately rejection of this deal.

Let this be the spark that ignites a national movement to reclaim our sovereignty, our transparency, and our dignity.

✊ Final Word: We Are Not a Dumping Ground

We are Belizeans. Not a refugee holding centre. Not a regional trash bin for the U.S. foreign policy leftovers.

This government may have signed the agreement.

But it is the Senate that can still save Belize’s future.

If they fail us—we, the people, must not.