The US Drive to Find Third Countries to Deport Migrants Is Gaining Momentum

The U.S. government is boosting its diplomatic efforts to find third countries to deport detained migrants whose own authorities won’t take them back. With Rwanda’s authorization, announced on Tuesday, three African countries have now agreed to accept deportees, after South Sudan and Eswatini reached similar agreements with the U.S. government. Six other countries, mainly in Latin America, have agreed to take in detainees who are not their own citizens as part of what Donald Trump calls the largest deportation in history.

“It’s very clear that there’s a concerted effort on the part of the U.S. government to maximize the number of places and locations to which they can deport people,” said Nicolas Palazzo, a policy advisor at the refugee advocacy organization HIAS.

The U.S. government claims they are safe countries, but internal conflicts and complaints from human rights organizations, including reports from the U.S. State Department itself, reveal a different reality. Torture, disappearances, abuse and repression are some of the accusations against the countries where detainees are being sent by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“Not only are they not safe countries, but they also fail to provide the procedural protections necessary for people fleeing persecution or torture under international law,” Palazzo explains.

In addition to the nations that have already agreed to accept deportees, U.S. government officials have begun talks with other countries. It’s difficult to predict which countries will reach new agreements because the negotiations are being kept secret, but talks have taken place with several dozen governments in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia, according to The New York Times, which obtained previously undisclosed diplomatic cables and interviews with officials.

The lack of democracy and human rights violations weigh heavily on many of them. Among the countries that have been approached are Morocco, Tunisia, Togo, Mauritania, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Libya. The latter, for example, has been plagued by internal conflict for more than a decade and, moreover, has not signed the international Convention against Torture.

Some nations have not signed agreements to accept third-country nationals, but have cooperated with deportations. This is the case of Uzbekistan, which accepted a plane carrying more than 100 Central Asian migrants who would then be sent from there to their countries of origin.

The push for deportations to third countries was prompted by a Supreme Court decision that gave the government the green light to resume the flights, at least temporarily, after a federal judge had banned them. The high court allowed flights to third countries while the case is being processed, which could take months.

With the Supreme Court’s authorization, the transfers have resumed with little notification to the detainees and without any prior process. In many cases, the names of those transferred have not been made public, and not even their families know their whereabouts. The deportees arrive in places where they know no one, don’t speak the language, and, in many cases, aren’t even granted adequate legal status to remain, leaving them in a legal limbo or sent back to another country.

Rwanda

In the case of Rwanda, the government stated that the 250 deportees it has agreed to receive will be provided with job training, medical care, and assistance with accommodation. The African country had previously attempted a similar agreement with the United Kingdom in 2022, which failed because the British Supreme Court ruled it unlawful. During the negotiations, London paid $380 million to the Rwandan government, which it never recovered.

Now, Rwanda will receive a subsidy payment in exchange for receiving deportees from the United States, according to a government official who did not disclose the amount, Reuters reported. Western and regional leaders have praised President Paul Kagame for transforming Rwanda from the ruins of the 1994 genocide, which claimed the lives of more than a million people, into a thriving economy. However, human rights groups have accused him of abusing his power and supporting rebels in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Eswatini

A worse fate has been announced for the five deportees who arrived in Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, in July. The government of the small southern African country said the men from Cuba, Jamaica, Vietnam, Laos and Yemen will remain in solitary confinement until their repatriation, a process that could take up to a year. A human rights lawyer from Eswatini has taken the authorities to court, alleging that the detainees are being denied legal representation while held in a maximum-security prison.

Eswatini is one of the last absolutist monarchies in the world. King Mswati III has ruled since he turned 18 in 1986, and the authorities under his command are accused of violently repressing pro-democracy movements.

A document from the U.S. State Department itself refers to “credible reports” of rights violations, including “torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the Government.”

South Sudan

South Sudan was the first African country to receive migrants from third countries, despite experiencing one of the world’s most alarming humanitarian crises and having been subject to extreme levels of violence for years. Nevertheless, in early July, the United States sent eight men, including citizens of Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, and Vietnam, to the East African country. The trip was extended by a federal court ruling prohibiting the detainees from being sent to third countries, so they remained for approximately six weeks at a U.S. military base in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa.

But before these African nations agreed to accept deportees from the United States, some Central American countries made similar arrangements in the early months of the Trump administration. The most famous case was when El Salvador accepted more than 200 Venezuelans accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua criminal gang in March in exchange for nearly $5 million. These Venezuelan citizens were finally part of a prisoner swap in July —which brought to the U.S. a man convicted of a triple murder in Madrid who was serving a 30-year sentence in Venezuela.

Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama and Mexico have also allowed planes carrying citizens from other countries to land. In most cases, these flights have been one-off, generating widespread social outrage among the local population when the conditions in which the deportees were being detained became known, and the practice has been halted.

However, thousands of people of other nationalities have arrived in Mexico. The government has assured them that they are free to stay or return to their countries of origin, and there hasn’t been much of a stir regarding the matter. In the case of Honduras, the country agreed to allow Venezuelan detainees to disembark, but they were later transferred to their countries of origin.

The rewards received by third countries vary. In addition to financial compensation, the Trump administration negotiates prisoner exchanges and political favors. Kosovo, for example, said it would take in up to 50 people in exchange for the United States pressuring other nations to recognize it as a sovereign state—it declared its independence from Serbia in 2008. In other cases, threats have worked, although some, such as the Angolan government, have refused to cooperate.