Overview

• At a UNGA side event, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said migrants should seek protection in the first country they enter and that asylum should be temporary with return timing set by host states.
• Representatives from Bangladesh, Kosovo, Liberia and Panama joined the discussion, expressing openness to changes but offering no formal endorsement of the U.S. proposal.
• Senior State Department official Spencer Chretien said the United States will convene governments in the coming months to develop new global asylum principles, calling the effort a call to action.
• Human Rights Watch warned the initiative could erode core safeguards such as protection from return to persecution, while UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi defended the existing framework as fundamentally sound.
• U.S. officials argued the current system is exploited by economic migrants and criminal networks, positioning the international drive alongside President Trump’s broader restrictive immigration agenda.