Eswatini says it received more ‘third country’ deportees as part of deal with Trump administration | US immigration
Eswatini’s government announced on Thursday that it had received four more “third country” deportees from the United States as part of the Trump administration’s multimillion-dollar deal with the small African nation.
Amid the Trump administration’s ongoing anti-immigrant crackdown and changes to immigration policy, a total of 19 people deported from the United States were sent to Eswatini even though they came from other countries.
A system for tracking people being transported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). flight trackerFirst followed the deportation flight to Eswatini, led by the advocacy group Human Rights. The flight apparently took off from Phoenix, Arizona, and landed in Eswatini, South Africa, around 11pm ET Wednesday night, according to the ICE flight monitor.
In a statement to the Guardian, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not provide requested details about people deported to Eswatini. “The Trump administration is using all legal options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history, just as President Trump promised,” the statement attributed to a senior DHS official said.
The government said two of the deportees sent to Eswatini on Wednesday night were Somali, one was Sudanese and one was from Tanzania. Their identities or other details about them have not been released by authorities.
Last year, the Trump administration entered into “third country” agreements with numerous countries around the world. The agreements allow countries to accept deported immigrants who are not their citizens, usually after receiving payment from the United States.
A recent congressional investigation found that the Trump administration paid more than $32 million to five foreign governments to accept a number of deportees.
“The administration engages in dubious dealings, primarily by making direct payments to corrupt and unstable foreign governments with a history of public corruption, human rights abuses, and human trafficking.” investigationsays a study led by Democrats on the Senate foreign relations committee.
Citizens of Vietnam, Cuba, Laos and Yemen were among those deported to Eswatini in July and October last year. Alma David, a lawyer for some members of the earlier group, told Reuters that a Cambodian man named Pheap Rom would be sent back to his country of origin. Rom will be the second man to be released from Eswatini custody after another man was deported back to Jamaica last year.
The Trump administration paid the small southern African country $5.1 million to accept the deportees.
“In accordance with this agreement,” the Eswatini government said. expression“the country has accepted another group of four third-country nationals from the United States.”
Eswatini is one of several African countries involved in third-country deportation agreements with the United States. Three men sent there last July filed a lawsuit against the Eswatini government with the African Union’s human rights agency. They said their continued detention was an unlawful violation of their rights, the Guardian reported. Eswatini’s high court last month rejected a lawsuit filed by local human rights lawyers, but an appeal has been filed.
The remainder of the third-country deportees sent to Eswatini last year were still in prison, despite having served sentences for crimes committed on U.S. soil.
Reuters contributed reporting
