US sends first deportees to Liberia under third-country deal
The US has begun deporting migrants to Liberia under a deal for 1,200 people, part of a wider practice of sending deportees to African countries they have no ties to.
Twenty migrants deported from the United States landed in Liberia on Thursday, the first batch of an expected 1,200 people the West African nation has agreed to receive under a new arrangement with Washington. The deal is part of a broader US practice of deporting individuals to countries that are not their own, often under agreements that are not made public.
Advocates say the Trump administration has used such third-country deportations to send thousands of people to about two dozen nations, nearly half of them in Africa. Countries that have accepted or agreed to accept deportees include South Sudan, Eswatini, Rwanda, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Congo, Uganda, Sierra Leone, and the Central African Republic. Some, like Ghana and Sierra Leone, are taking people from the same region, but many deportees are sent to places with which they have no connection.
Immigration lawyers describe the practice as a legal loophole that allows the US to indirectly return asylum-seekers to countries they fled, even when US courts have ordered protection. For example, a gay Moroccan woman was sent to Cameroon, where homosexuality is illegal, and an Iranian woman with a US court order protecting her from return to Iran was sent to the Central African Republic. Deportees often say they were not told their destination until hours into the journey.
Liberian authorities have said the deportees can seek asylum in Liberia or leave if they choose. But rights groups warn that the program risks violating the principle of non-refoulement, which forbids sending people to places where they face persecution or torture. In some cases, deportees have been held in hotels, military camps, or airport cells, and some have reported being shackled or restrained in full-body straitjackets during long flights.
The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic staff reported in February that the administration had spent at least $40 million to deport about 300 migrants to third countries. More nations have joined since then. Some African leaders have defended the deals as humanitarian gestures, while others, like Congo’s president, called it an “act of goodwill between partners” without financial compensation. Legal challenges have been filed in Ghana and Equatorial Guinea over the treatment of deportees.