Eswatini announced on Thursday that it received four more third-country deportees from the United States as part of an ongoing deal with the Trump administration. This brings the total number of such deportees to at least 19, according to multiple reports.
Key Takeaways
Eswatini received four more deportees from the US as part of a Trump administration deal, bringing the total to at least 19. The latest group includes nationals from Somalia, Sudan, and Tanzania. Rights groups have protested these secretive agreements with seven African nations.
The latest group includes two nationals from Somalia, one from Sudan, and one from Tanzania. Previous deportees sent to Eswatini included nationals from Vietnam, Cuba, Laos, Yemen, and Jamaica. The Trump administration has struck similar third-country deals with numerous countries globally, often involving payments to accept deportees who are not their citizens.
A flight tracker run by the advocacy group Human Rights First monitored the deportation flight, which took off from Phoenix, Arizona, and landed in Eswatini at around 11pm ET on Wednesday night. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Trump administration has spent at least $40 million to deport roughly 300 migrants to countries other than their own in Africa, Central America and elsewhere, according to a report compiled by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Eswatini is one of seven African nations involved in such deportation deals with the US.
Others that have struck third-country deportation deals with the Trump administration include Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and South Sudan. The high court last month threw out a case filed by local human rights lawyers challenging these agreements, though an appeal has been lodged. Despite having served their sentences for crimes on US soil, many deportees remain in prison in Eswatini.
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