deportees

Uganda is the latest of several countries to strike a deportation deal with the United States as President Donald Trump ramps up controversial efforts to remove migrants from the country.

In a statement on Thursday, Uganda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that Kampala had agreed for Washington to send over third-country nationals who face deportation from the US, but are unwilling to return to their home countries. The ministry said that the agreement was made under certain conditions.

Rights groups and law experts have condemned Trump’s controversial plans to deport millions of undocumented migrants. Those already deported include convicted criminals and “uniquely barbaric monsters,” according to the White House.

African countries, such as Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, have accepted similar deals, reportedly in exchange for lower tariffs. The US’s actions are exploitative and tantamount to treating the continent as a “dumping ground,” Melusi Simelane of the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) told Al Jazeera, adding that Washington was especially focusing on countries with weak human rights protection.

Here’s what you need to know about the Uganda deal and what countries might be getting in return for hosting US deportees:

What did Uganda agree to?

In a statement posted on X on Thursday, Bagiire Vincent Waiswa, the permanent secretary of Uganda’s Foreign Ministry, said the country had agreed to a “temporary arrangement” with the US. He did not state the timelines for when the deportations would begin or end.

There are caveats regarding the people who would be transferred, the statement continued, including that Uganda will not accept people with criminal records or unaccompanied minors and that it “prefers” that Africans be transferred as part of the deal.

“The two parties are working out the detailed modalities on how the agreement shall be implemented,” the statement added.

A US State Department statement confirmed that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had held discussions over the phone regarding “migration, reciprocal trade, and commercial ties”.

The deal’s announcement came after weeks of speculation in local Ugandan media regarding whether the East African nation would accept US deportees.

On Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Henry Okello Oryem denied the media reports, saying Uganda did not have the facilities to accommodate deportees.

Speaking to The Associated Press news agency, Oryem said Uganda was discussing issues of “visas, tariffs, sanctions and related issues” with the US, but not of migration.

“We are talking about cartels: people who are unwanted in their own countries. How can we integrate them into local communities in Uganda?” he told the AP.

A day later, Uganda’s narrative had flipped.

What might Uganda gain from this?

The Foreign Ministry’s statement on Thursday did not state what Uganda might be getting in return.

Other countries, including Eswatini, have reportedly accepted deportees in exchange for lower tariffs.

Uganda has been hit with 15 percent tariffs on goods entering the US, as part of Trump’s reciprocal tariff wars. Senior government officials in early August told local media that the tariffs would disrupt Ugandan exports, especially in the agricultural sector, and that Kampala would enter negotiations for a better deal.

Coffee, vanilla, cocoa beans and petroleum products are some of Uganda’s key exports to the US. Kampala is particularly keen on boosting coffee exports to the US and competing with bigger suppliers like Colombia. The US, on the other hand, exports machinery, such as aircraft parts, to Uganda, which imposes an 18 percent tariff on imported products.

The US and Uganda have historically enjoyed friendly ties, with the US routinely sending aid to Kampala. However, after Uganda passed an anti-homosexuality bill into law in 2023, relations turned sour, and the US accused Uganda of “human rights violations”. The law proscribes punishment, including life sentences, for same-sex relations.

Washington thereafter cut aid funding for HIV programs and issued visa restrictions on Ugandan government officials “complicit in undermining the democratic process.” The US also banned Uganda from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a trade programme that helped African countries trade tariff-free with the US, but that Trump’s tariffs have effectively killed.

The World Bank additionally banned Uganda from its loans for two years, although the restriction was lifted this June.

Rights activists say the deal on deportees could make the US administration more favourably inclined towards Uganda, but at the expense of those deported.

“The proposed deal runs afoul of international law,” human rights lawyer Nicholas Opiyo told the AP. He added that such an arrangement leaves the legal status of deportees unclear as to whether they are refugees or prisoners.

“We are sacrificing human beings for political expediency; in this case, because Uganda wants to be in the good books of the United States,” Opiyo said.“That I can keep your prisoners if you pay me; how is that different from human trafficking?”

Does Uganda already host refugees?

Yes, Uganda is Africa’s largest refugee host country. It already hosts some 1.7 million refugees, largely from neighbouring South Sudan, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which are all dealing with armed conflict and unrest.

The United Nations has, in the past, hailed the country as having a “progressive refugee policy” and “maintaining an open-door approach to asylum”.

However, opposition activists are sounding the alarm over the government’s dismal human rights record. Uganda has been ruled by Museveni since 1986, with his party winning contested elections in landslides. Opposition members and journalists are often targeted in arrests. Some report being tortured in detention.

Speaking to the AP, opposition lawmaker Muwada Nkunyingi said the US deal could give Museveni’s government further Western legitimacy ahead of general elections scheduled for January 2026.

The deal was struck to “clear their image now that we are heading into the 2026 elections,” Nkunyingi said. He urged the US not to ignore what he described as human rights issues in Uganda.

What other countries has the US sent people to?

Eswatini, Rwanda and South Sudan have struck similar agreements with the US.

Eswatini, in July, accepted five unnamed men from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Cuba and Yemen.

Tricia McLaughlin, Department for Homeland Security assistant secretary, described them as “individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back”. She added that they were convicted of offences ranging from child rape to murder, and faced up to 25 years in jail. The men are presently held in detention facilities and will be sent back to their countries, according to officials who did not state a timeline.

Activists accuse the Eswatini government of engaging in the deal in exchange for lower tariffs from the US. The tiny country, which exports apparel, fruits, nuts and raw sugar to the US, was hit with a 10 percent tariff.

“No country should have to be engaged in the violation of international human rights laws, including breaching its domestic laws, to please the Global North in the name of trade,” Simulane of SALC, who is leading an ongoing court case challenging the Eswatini government’s decision, told Al Jazeera. The move, he said, was against the country’s constitution, which mandates that international agreements pass through parliament.

“What we want, at the core, is for the agreement to be published for public scrutiny, and for the public to understand (if) it indeed is in line with our national interest,” Simulane said. “We further want the agreement declared unconstitutional because it lacked parliamentary approval.”

South Africa, which borders Eswatini on three sides, summoned the smaller country’s diplomats earlier in August to raise security concerns about the arrangement.

Similarly, the US sent eight “barbaric” criminals to South Sudan in July. The DHS listed them as being from Cuba, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Mexico and South Sudan. They were convicted of crimes such as first-degree murder, robbery, drug trafficking, and sexual assault, the DHS said.

The men were initially diverted to Djibouti for months pending a legal challenge in the US. However, in late June, the US Supreme Court approved the move to South Sudan.

Rwanda, too, has confirmed that it will take 250 deportees from the US at an unnamed date. According to government spokesperson Yolande Makolo, the deportees will enjoy “workforce training, health care and accommodation”. The country previously struck a controversial migrant deal for a fee with the United Kingdom. That deal, however, fell through when the new Labour government was elected in the UK in 2024.

Outside Africa, El Salvador has taken in 300 migrants, mainly from Venezuela, for a $6m fee.

Costa Rica accepted 200 asylum seekers from Afghanistan, China, Ghana, India and Vietnam. While many have been repatriated, some 28 people were still in detention by June. It is unclear what the US offered in return.

Nearly 300 people from countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and China were sent to Panama in February.

On August 5, Rwanda announced it had agreed to accept 250 migrants under the Trump administration’s expanding third-country deportation programme.

Speaking from Kigali, government spokesperson Yolande Makolo said Rwanda would retain the right to decide which deportees to admit for “resettlement”. Those accepted, she added, would receive training, healthcare, and housing to help them “rebuild their lives”.

The programme forms part of President Donald Trump’s controversial pledge to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history.”
It also marks the third deportation agreement of its kind on the African continent.

On July 16, the US sent five convicted criminals from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Cuba, and Yemen to Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland.

Described as “barbaric and violent” and rejected by their countries of origin, they are confined to isolated units at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, near the capital Mbabane, pending eventual repatriation.

Eleven days earlier, on July 5, eight men convicted of murder, sexual assault, and robbery were deported to South Sudan. Reports differ on whether any deportee was South Sudanese.

The deportations have already provoked widespread outrage – from civil society groups in Eswatini, to lawyers in South Sudan, who denounce them as illegal.

South Africa’s government has even lodged a formal protest with Eswatini.

Nigeria, meanwhile, has rebuffed US pressure to accept 300 Venezuelans, with Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar saying the country already has “enough problems” and “over 230 million people” to care for.

These deals are unfair.

The US is strong-arming others at the expense of vulnerable people.

Trump’s established brutality is horrifying. His family separations in 2019 left children terrified and alone, all in the name of policy.

The US is now sending people to Rwanda, Eswatini, and South Sudan – countries already struggling to care for their own citizens.

This truth exposes Trump’s Victorian view of Africa: a desolate, irredeemable continent unworthy of respect or equal partnership. His vision echoes a Western tradition, crystallised in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, where Africa is portrayed as “dark” and “primeval” – a land deemed oppressive and violent, its people cast as incapable of understanding, feeling, or compassion.

That is not who we are.

Yes, Africa has challenges.

Nonetheless, we do not turn the marginalised into pawns, nor do we disguise exile as policy. Our humanity is unshakable and beyond reproach.

Today, Uganda hosts about 1.7 million refugees, making it Africa’s largest refugee-hosting country. This figure exceeds the combined refugee populations under UNHCR’s mandate in the UK, France, and Belgium today.

Europe must assume a far greater share of responsibility for asylum seekers and refugees.

These third-country deportation deals are not credible policy.

They are colonialism reborn.

No self-respecting African leader should ever agree to participate in an organised atrocity – not when Africa still bleeds from the wounds inflicted by the West: Sudan’s civil war, civic unrest in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, environmental devastation in Nigeria’s Delta, and the continuing reach of French monetary imperialism through the CFA.

“Uncle Sam” now plans to send both convicted criminals and desperate asylum seekers to Africa’s shores, instead of the warships of old. Both groups deserve support at home in the US, with extensive rehabilitation for offenders and safe sanctuary for the vulnerable.

If not, Europe can be the only alternative.

Let the architects of empire face the heat.

Let the wealthy, politically obnoxious allies of Washington carry the burden for once.

Rwanda, Eswatini, and South Sudan are among the poorest nations in the world, with per capita incomes just a tiny fraction of their former colonial rulers in Europe. Expecting them to carry the burden of America’s deportees is not only unjust – it is absurd.

A May 2025 study, Unequal Exchange and North-South Relations, undertaken by Gaston Nievas and Thomas Piketty, analysed foreign wealth accumulation over more than two centuries. It shows that by 1914, European powers held net foreign assets approaching 140 percent of GDP, underscoring how colonial transfers, artificially low commodity prices, forced labour, and exploitation fuelled Europe’s enrichment.

From Juba to Kigali, colonial plunder still drives global inequality.

A return to the systemic brutalities unleashed after the disastrous Berlin Conference of 1885, when European powers carved up Africa, cannot be accepted.

No matter what officials in Rwanda, South Sudan, or Eswatini claim in public, sending America’s cast-offs to Africa is colonial exploitation repackaged for today.

This is not a new strategy.

Beginning in the 19th century, many European colonies were reduced to offshore extraction centres and dumping grounds. France banished convicts and political exiles to territories such as present-day Gabon and Djibouti. Spain used Bioko Island in Equatorial Guinea as a penal settlement for deportees from Cuba.

The US has revived that same imperial entitlement, delivering a fresh blow to both Africa and the Americas. Most irregular migrants in the US come from Venezuela, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Haiti – nations scarred by centuries of European colonialism and US imperial interference.

These countries embody the ongoing impact of colonial legacies and geopolitical meddling that propel migration.

Yet the West, and Europe above all, denies and disowns the consequences of its crimes, past and present.

European nations have certainly prospered through centuries of colonial exploitation. The UK, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, for instance, boast robust welfare systems, public health networks, and prison rehabilitation programmes – magnificent structures built on centuries of colonial extraction.

They have both the means and the institutions to absorb deportees.

They also have the record.

These same powers have eagerly joined the US in targeting and destabilising sovereign nations across Africa, as well as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya – in wars widely condemned as violations of international law.

Every intervention has unleashed fresh waves of refugees and asylum seekers, hapless men, women, and children fleeing the very chaos Western armies engineered: powerless people whom the West openly ignores or despises.

Africa, by contrast, plays by the rules and adheres to the UN Charter. We honour sovereignty, respect international law, and strive for peace, even while shackled by colonial debt designed to keep us dependent.

Europe breaks the rules, Africa abides by them – yet Africa is asked to shoulder the burden.

The hypocrisy is staggering.

We will not bankroll, legitimise, or inherit the crimes of empire.

After all, we barely control our own destinies. The IMF and World Bank dictate our economies. The UN Security Council enforces old hierarchies. The G7 protects the West’s interests over us, Africans left impoverished and starving. Structural oppression allows the West to keep interfering in the lives of people across Africa and the Americas.

But we will not be complicit.

We will not be silent.

Western policies and interventions drive poverty, displacement, and instability in the Global South.

If the US insists on offloading its deportees, let it send them to those who built and still profit from this system of oppression.

The West must reckon with its spoils.

Leave Africa out of it.

Send Trump’s deportees to Europe.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

KIGALI, Rwanda — Rwanda on Tuesday became the third African nation to agree to accept deportees from the United States under the Trump administration’s plans to send migrants to countries they have no ties with to get them off American soil.

Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo told The Associated Press in a statement that the East African country would accept up to 250 deportees from the U.S., with “the ability to approve each individual proposed for resettlement” under the agreement.

Makolo didn’t provide a timeline for any deportees to arrive in Rwanda or say if they would arrive at once or in several batches. She said details were still being worked out.

The U.S. sent 13 men it described as dangerous criminals who were in the U.S. illegally to South Sudan and Eswatini in Africa last month and has said it is seeking more agreements with African nations. It said those deportees’ home countries refused to take them back.

The U.S. has also deported hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama under President Trump’s plans to expel people who he says entered the U.S. illegally and are “the worst of the worst.”

Rwanda attracted international attention and some outrage when it struck a deal in 2022 with the U.K. to accept migrants who had arrived in the U.K. to seek asylum. Under that proposed deal, their claims would have been processed in Rwanda and, if successful, they would have stayed there.

The contentious agreement was criticized by rights groups and others as being unethical and unworkable and was ultimately scrapped when Britain’s new Labour government took over. Britain’s Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that the deal was unlawful because Rwanda was not a safe third country for migrants.

The Trump administration has come under scrutiny for the African countries it has entered into secretive deals with to take deportees. It sent eight men from South Sudan, Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan in early July after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for their deportations.

They were held for weeks in a converted shipping container at an American military base in Djibouti as the legal battle over their deportations played out. South Sudan, which is tipping toward civil war, has declined to say where the men are being held or what their fate is.

The U.S. also deported five men who are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos to the southern African kingdom of Eswatini, where the government said they will be held in solitary confinement in prison for an undetermined period of time.

A human rights lawyer in Eswatini said the men are being denied access to legal representation there and has taken authorities to court. Eswatini is Africa’s last absolute monarchy, and the king rules over government and political parties are effectively banned.

Both South Sudan and Eswatini have declined to give details of their agreements with the U.S.

Rwanda, a relatively small country of some 15 million people, has long stood out on the continent for its recovery from a genocide that killed over 800,000 people in 1994. It has promoted itself under longtime President Paul Kagame as an example of stability and development, but human rights groups allege there are also deadly crackdowns on any perceived dissent against Kagame, who has been president for 25 years.

Government spokesperson Makolo said the agreement with the U.S. was Rwanda doing its part to help with international migration issues because “our societal values are founded on reintegration and rehabilitation.”

“Those approved (for resettlement in Rwanda) will be provided with workforce training, healthcare, and accommodation support to jumpstart their lives in Rwanda, giving them the opportunity to contribute to one of the fastest-growing economies in the world over the last decade,” she said. There were no details about whether Rwanda had received anything in return for taking the deportees.

Gonzaga Muganwa, a Rwandan political analyst, said “appeasing President Trump pays.”

“This agreement enhances Rwanda’s strategic interest of having good relationships with the Trump administration,” he said.

The U.K. government estimated that its failed migration deal with Rwanda cost around $900 million in public money, including approximately $300 million in payments to Rwanda, which said it was not obligated to refund the money when the agreement fell apart.

Ssuuna and Imray write for the Associated Press. Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — The United States has deported five immigrants from Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos to Eswatini, a small country in southern Africa where the king still holds absolute power.

Eswatini says it is holding the men in correctional facilities until they can be sent to their home countries, after it became the latest nation to accept third-country deportees from the U.S.

Here’s what to know about Eswatini:

The king rules supreme

Eswatini is one of a few countries that are still absolute monarchies, and the only one in Africa. That means the king has absolute power over government and is not just a figurehead or a ceremonial ruler.

King Mswati III has ruled Eswatini since 1986, when he turned 18 and was allowed to take his place as the monarch. He can make decisions by decree. He succeeded his father, Sobhuza II, who died in 1982.

The 57-year-old Mswati III has long been criticized for ruling over a government that suppresses political dissent while he lives a lavish lifestyle in one of the poorest countries in the world.

The king is reported to have 11 wives and has been the subject of scrutiny for buying luxury cars. His wealth has been estimated at between $200 million and $500 million, while the World Bank says more than half of Eswatini’s 1.2 million people live on less than $4 a day.

No political parties

Political parties were banned by Sobhuza II in 1973. Some exist now, but they are not allowed to play any role in elections or the political process and have been reduced to civic society groups. Candidates seeking public office in Eswatini’s Parliament or Senate have to stand as individuals without any party affiliation and are generally approved by traditional leaders loyal to Mswati III.

Pro-democracy protests have grown in recent years and Eswatini authorities under Mswati III have been accused of crushing them using the security forces. Many dissidents live in exile.

Previously Swaziland

The country was previously known as Swaziland but changed to Eswatini in 2018 after the king announced it should revert to its traditional name in the Swazi language. It was Swaziland when it was under British colonial rule, which ended in 1968.

Severely affected by HIV

Eswatini has been severely affected by HIV and has the highest prevalence in the world, with an estimated 26% of the adult population HIV-positive, according to the United Nations AIDS agency.

It has made significant progress in confronting that scourge but has been highly reliant on foreign aid to do that, including assistance from the U.S., which has now been cut by the Trump administration.

Imray writes for the Associated Press.

July 5 (UPI) — Eight deported “migrants” who had been held at a U.S. military base in Djibouti are bound for South Sudan aboard a military aircraft that took off on Friday night.

The flight carrying the eight deportees had been delayed for six weeks until the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled a lower court erred when it issued a preliminary injunction halting the deportations in April.

“These sickos were finally deported to South Sudan on Independence day,” said Tricia McLaughlin, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary, in a press release on Saturday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement “deported these eight barbaric criminal illegal aliens who are so heinous even their own countries will not accept them,” McLaughlin added.

She accused federal “activist judges” of delaying the deportation flight.

“We will continue to fight for the freedoms of Americans while these far-left activists continue to try and force us to bring murderers, pedophiles and rapists back to the U.S.,” McLaughlin said.

The federal lawsuit forced the flight to land at the Djibouti base while the matter made its way through the federal court system.

The eight deportees include two from Cuba, two from Burma, and one each from Laos, Vietnam, Mexico and South Sudan.

All have been convicted of crimes, including homicide, armed robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault and sexual offenses involving a minor younger than age 12.

The military aircraft left the Djibouti base at 8:30 p.m. EDT with each deportee secured by handcuffs and ankle shackles while surrounded by uniformed personnel, The New York Times reported.

The aircraft landed in South Sudan just before midnight EDT on Friday.

Ruth Eleonora López has defended Venezuelan immigrants deported to El Salvador by US President Trump’s administration.

A prominent human rights lawyer known for defending immigrants deported amid United States President Donald Trump’s hardline anti-immigration policies has been arrested in El Salvador.

Ruth Eleonora López, 47, a senior figure at the rights group Cristosal and a vocal critic of El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, a Trump ally, was detained late on Sunday.

The arrest was confirmed by the country’s attorney general’s office, which in an online post accused López of embezzling state funds during her time at El Salvador’s electoral court more than a decade ago.

“Neither her family nor her legal team has managed to find out her whereabouts,” Cristosal said in a statement, calling the refusal to disclose her location or allow access to lawyers “a blatant violation of due process”.

The group said her arrest “raises serious concerns about the increasing risks faced by human rights defenders in El Salvador”.

López has publicly criticised the government’s mass incarceration of alleged gang members, many of whom have not been charged.

Cristosal, one of the most prominent human rights groups in Latin America, has assisted Salvadoran families caught in Bukele’s security policies, as well as more than 250 Venezuelan immigrants who have been deported to El Salvador under Trump’s administration.

Bukele, who has called himself “the world’s coolest dictator” and has cultivated close ties with Trump, said earlier this year that El Salvador is ready to house US prisoners in a sprawling mega-prison opened last year.

In March, Trump used rarely invoked wartime powers to send dozens of Venezuelans to El Salvador without trial, alleging ties to the Tren de Aragua gang – a charge their families and lawyers deny.

The US Supreme Court on Friday barred the Trump administration from quickly resuming swift deportations of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

In April, Cristosal reported that police had entered its offices during a news conference to film and photograph journalists and staff members – part of what observers say is a broader campaign of harassment and intimidation against civil society organisations and independent media.

López was recognised by the BBC as one of the world’s 100 most inspiring and influential women for her commitment to justice and the rule of law.

A joint statement signed by more than a dozen rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, demanded her immediate release.

“El Salvador’s state of exception has not only been used to address gang-related violence but also as a tool to silence critical voices,” the statement said.

“Authoritarianism has increased in recent years as President Nayib Bukele has undermined institutions and the rule of law, and persecuted civil society organizations and independent journalists,” it added.