Printed On 20 Aug 2026
A primary group of deportees, out of an anticipated whole of 1,200, has landed on the Roberts Worldwide Airport in Monrovia, Liberia, from america.
Thursday’s flight is a part of an increasing pattern of third-country deportations below the administration of US President Donald Trump, whereby international nationals are despatched to nations that aren’t their very own.
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The inaugural flight carried 20 folks, largely from Latin American nations like Venezuela and Cuba.
After touchdown, the group boarded a bus and was taken away by Liberian authorities with out being allowed to talk to reporters.
The flight follows an settlement, introduced on Tuesday, between the US and Liberia that can carry as much as 1,200 deportees to the African nation over the approaching yr.
Liberia is a part of a rising listing of nations placing agreements with the Trump administration.
Since taking workplace for a second time period as US president in 2025, Trump has inked offers with no less than 35 nations to just accept third-country deportees, in keeping with the nonprofit Human Rights First.
In trade, a few of these nations have obtained monetary help and commerce offers. Senate Democrats in February estimated that no less than $40m had been spent on such offers within the first yr of Trump’s second time period.
The US, for instance, awarded Liberia $5m this yr for “migration administration actions”.
However in saying the switch deal earlier this week, Liberia’s Ministry of Data denied any studies that it agreed to the deportations for monetary motives.
“The switch of individuals to Liberia will not be a transaction with a quid professional quo,” the ministry stated in a statement. “Liberia has not demanded or obtained any compensation or promise of reward in trade for its consent to take part in this system.”
Liberia’s Data Minister Jerolinmek Piah additionally advised the information company Reuters that the Worldwide Group for Migration and the United Nations refugee company would assist present providers for the deportees.
These delivered to Liberia shall be allowed to use for asylum and are “free to depart the nation after they so need”, in keeping with Tuesday’s assertion.
Liberia has stated that the deportees aren’t “criminals and aren’t being prosecuted in any method”.
“Liberia, the primary black African unbiased nation on the African continent, has an extended historical past of accepting folks in search of refuge from political and different crises,” the ministry’s assertion stated.
“As a matter of truth, Liberia itself was based as a refuge for freed slaves from america of America and different components of the world.”
However critics have questioned whether or not smaller nations in Africa and elsewhere are getting used as a “dumping ground” for US deportees, and whether or not the immigrants forcibly despatched overseas can have sufficient entry to the sources they want.
Some have characterised such third-country deportations as excessively punitive, stranding migrants and asylum seekers in locations the place they generally can’t even communicate the language.
The Trump administration, in the meantime, has framed the third-party deportations as vital for immigrants whose dwelling nations won’t settle for them. It has additionally framed the removals as a type of deterrence.
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo on Thursday estimated that, this yr alone, roughly 2,300 Mexican residents have been deported from the US to his nation, versus being despatched on to Mexico.
Media retailers, together with CBS Information, have reported that the manouevre is a part of an effort to disincentivize Mexican nationals from returning to the US with out authorized immigration standing.
Arevalo defined, nevertheless, that such deportees are swiftly despatched again to Mexico. “They’re arriving in planes of Guatemalan returnees, and what we have now finished is course of them as in transit, in coordination with the Mexican immigration authorities,” he stated.
