Third-Country Deportations: Illegal, Unethical, and Increasingly Common
Immigration has been a thematic cornerstone of the second Trump Administration, embodying the core traits of Donald Trump’s political second wind. Immigration enforcement, through the unyielding, unrepentant power of the executive branch, has become all-encompassing, legally dubious, and intentionally targeted at the most vulnerable among us. The mass deportation of undocumented migrants (and sometimes documented migrants with Temporary Protected Status) has become a central aim of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under Trump.
A bizarre twist in this new immigration regime is the phenomenon of third-country deportations, where migrants are not deported to their country of origin or the country they most recently immigrated from, but rather a third, unrelated country. The intentions behind this move may at first seem confusing. What is the intended message in attempting to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man, to Uganda? Why send a group of Cuban migrants to Eswatini? Under the surface, these third-country deportations tell us a lot about both the symbolic and political power of deportations and the new ways in which powerful Western countries choose to address and manage immigration. The Trump Administration’s third-country deportations are an ethical wrong and a legal violation of domestic and international laws surrounding deportations and the treatment of migrants. Moreover, third-country deportations reflect a pattern of exploitation of weaker countries which further damages the credibility of Western powers and fails to address the deepening quagmire of global migration.
Starting early in Trump’s second term, the Administration began deporting undocumented American migrants, mostly from Central America but also hailing from areas as disparate as South Sudan, Cuba, and Vietnam. Infamously, a group of Venezuelan migrants were sent to CECOT, a maximum security prison in El Salvador notorious for its human rights abuses. On the African continent, the U.S. government struck deals with Uganda, Rwanda, Eswatini, and South Sudan in which they agreed to accept migrants. In theory, the policy, alongside other domestic immigration crackdown measures, is intended to deter asylum-seekers from seeking asylum in the U.S. and encourage self-deportation among migrants who are already in the U.S.
The third countries accept these deals for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that the Trump Administration has offered considerable monetary compensation for accepting immigrants. The Swazi government, for example, was paid $5.1 million to accept 250 migrants from the United States. The Trump Administration wields the stick in addition to the carrot; it has threatened to add the African countries who do not accept the migrants to its travel ban list, terminating the issue of visas for all of that country’s nationals. By using financial gain and diplomatic relations as a bargaining chip, the United States is exploiting smaller and weaker countries in the Global South because of its greater monetary and international power.
So far, at least 550 migrants have been deported to third countries. The migrants deported to third countries have been convicted of criminal offenses in the United States. Some of the migrants were already serving time in prison in the United States before their deportation. The conditions of the migrants once in the third countries are often brutal, and the information we have regarding their welfare is often murky. The migrants sent to Eswatini, for instance, were moved to its maximum security prison, known for its overcrowding and lack of resources. The deportees sent to Ghana have been deported again to their countries of origin after being detained in Ghana itself under reportedly “squalid” conditions. The deportees to Rwanda are reportedly being integrated into Rwandan society, rather than detained, but little information has come out about the results, and Rwanda has its own problematic human rights record under the regime of longtime President Paul Kagame. Deporting migrants to places that they are not from deprives them of their support system and legal representation, further cementing the inhumane conditions of third-country deportations.
Third-country deportations are not a new idea for the Trump Administration. During his first term, Trump attempted to deport third-country migrants to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, and wanted migrants traveling through Central America to seek asylum there instead of arriving at the Southern U.S. border. Under U.S. law, third-country deportations are legal, but only under highly specific conditions. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) allows migrants to be deported to third countries, but only if their country of origin refuses to accept them (perhaps because of political reasons or for lack of a diplomatic relationship with the U.S.), the migrant requests a third-country deportation, deportation to their country of origin is unsafe for the migrant, or deportation to their country of origin is otherwise improbable. Because migrants are sent to countries where they may face human rights abuses while imprisoned or become vulnerable to other forms of persecution, Trump’s third-country deportations violate the protections afforded by the INA. The judicial system has pushed back against the Trump Administration’s policy, with Federal Judge Brian E. Murphy halting all third-country deportations that occur without first ensuring migrants’ safety in April. It can be further argued that Trump’s deportations are unconstitutional on the grounds that they violate migrants’right to due process. Rather than getting due process for their asylum cases in the U.S., these migrants are deported to countries where they lack legal representation and are unable to argue their asylum claims.
Third-country deportations are also contested under international law. Under the 1967 UN Refugee Protocol, which the U.S. is a signatory to, a state is not allowed to deport a migrant to a place in which they would face danger, torture, or other forms of harm and persecution, in accordance with the principle of non-refoulment. The Refugee Protocol also prohibits “chain refoulment,” wherein a migrant is deported first to a third country and then to another country (such as their country of origin) where they might face torture or persecution. As mentioned, migrants have already faced human rights abuses while in detention in El Salvador and Eswatini, while being deprived of their legal right to an asylum claim. If these third-country deportations continue, migrants will continue to suffer and be deprived of their inalienable rights, while American immigration enforcement will remain unethical.
Third-country deportation is not only an American phenomenon. Starting in 2022, the United Kingdom (UK) government under Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attempted to advance a bill to deport asylum seekers who cross the English Channel to Rwanda, with the intention of deterring future asylum seekers, similar to the policy of the Trump Administration. The proposal was, like its American cousin, quite costly; the UK government planned on paying Rwanda £240 million (~$324 million in US dollars) to take migrants and paying up to £150,000 (~$202,000) per migrant. This plan was found to be £63,000 (~$84,800) more expensive than simply keeping the migrants in the UK. The European Union (EU) has also looked into third-country deportation as a solution to its migrant crisis.
Even as an anti-immigrant tide continues to wash across the West, the ethical and legal issues of third-country deportation should deter its use among Western governments. Third-country deportations both risk the lives and safety of migrants once deported and are demonstrably illegal under both national and international law. At their core, third-country deportations rest on an exploitative relationship between Western countries and less powerful countries in the Global South. The U.S. under Trump is using its outsized economic and diplomatic power in order to coerce countries like Eswatini or Ghana into accepting migrants. These countries are incentivized to take the deportation deals, lest they lose visa access or forgo much-needed funds or aid. These exploitative relationships echo the coercion, extraction, and exploitation of countries of the Global South under Western imperialism. Such exploitative policies among Western powers today will only sow the seeds of greater distrust towards the West among the Global South down the line, and ultimately erode the legal and ethical credibility of the West on the world stage. It is abundantly clear that third-country deportations endanger migrants, and it is imperative that Western countries seek sustainable, long-term immigration reform rather than exploitative, unethical, and ultimately hollow policies.