DAKAR, Senegal — Twenty migrants deported from the United States arrived in Liberia on Thursday, the first group of an eventual 1,200 deportees that the West African country says it will receive from the U.S. under a new deal.
Under a series of often-secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to two dozen countries that aren’t their own, as it pushes ahead with its immigration crackdown , advocates say. Immigration lawyers say the practice is being used as a legal loophole to indirectly return some asylum-seekers to countries they fled. Many of the African countries approving the deals are among the worst hit by the Trump administration’s policies, including on trade, aid and migration. A good number of them also have authoritarian governments, raising questions about the lack of accountability and due process to ensure the protection of the deportees’ rights.
Authorities in Liberia have said the deportees being welcomed in their country can seek asylum there or leave if they choose.
U.S. policy says that when a receiving government gives blanket diplomatic assurances that deportees won’t face persecution there, they can be removed without additional procedures, David told The Associated Press. Details of most of the deals are never made public and some of the African nations, like Ghana’s government , have defended their actions as having been taken on humanitarian grounds. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The deal came as Washington increased pressure on neighboring Rwanda over its support for M23 rebels, a dynamic analysts say may help explain Congo’s willingness to cooperate. In Equatorial Guinea, the found deportees confined in a hotel owned by the family of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
The Trump administration had spent at least $40 million to deport about 300 migrants to countries other than their own, according to a February report by the Democratic staff of the U.S. Twenty-five of at least 32 people held there had been sent to their home countries by May.
Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi has described his country’s agreement as an “act of goodwill between partners,” without financial compensation. Migrants said they were barred from leaving, had uneven access to medical care and faced repeated pressure to return home.
More countries have entered the deal since then.
