Rwanda joins African nations in Trump administration migrant deal

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Rwanda has become the third African nation to enter into a deal with the Trump administration to accept migrants deported by the United States.

The Rwandan government said Tuesday it has agreed to accept up to 250 deportees from the U.S. for resettlement but didn’t immediately give any more details, including when they would arrive or what Rwanda got, if anything, out of the deal.

The U.S. has already deported eight men it said were dangerous criminals who were in the U.S. illegally to South Sudan and another five to Eswatini.

Here’s what we know, and still don’t know, about U.S. President Donald Trump’s expanding third-country deportation program in Africa and the largely secretive deals the U.S. is striking.

The U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security haven’t responded to requests seeking more details on the deals in Africa.

South Sudan

The U.S. sent eight men from South Sudan, Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan in East Africa in early July after their deportations were held up by a legal challenge. That led to them being kept for weeks in a converted shipping container at an American military base in nearby Djibouti.

U.S. officials said the men had been convicted of violent crimes in the U.S.

When it took custody of them a month ago, the South Sudan government said it would ensure their “safety and wellbeing” but has declined to give other details, including where the men are being held and what their fate might be.

South Sudan has been wracked by conflict since it gained independence from Sudan in 2011 and is teetering on the edge of civil war again.

Eswatini

Two weeks after the South Sudan deportations, the U.S. announced that it had sent another five men — citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos — to the small kingdom of Eswatini in southern Africa.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said they were also violent criminals whose home countries had refused to take them back.

Eswatini’s government said the men would be held in solitary confinement until their repatriation, and later said that might take up to a year. A human rights lawyer in Eswatini has taken authorities to court alleging the men are being denied legal representation while being held in a maximum-security prison, and questioning the legality of detaining them indefinitely when they have served their criminal sentences in the U.S.

U.S. authorities didn’t name the men or say if they had been deported straight from prison or detained in another way.

Eswatini, which borders South Africa, is one of the world’s last absolute monarchies. King Mswati III has ruled since he turned 18 in 1986. Authorities under him are accused of violently subduing pro-democracy movements in a country where political parties are effectively banned.

Rwanda

Rwanda’s deal with the U.S. comes after a contentious migrant agreement it reached with the U.K. in 2022 collapsed and was ruled unlawful by Britain’s Supreme Court. That deal was meant to see people seeking asylum in the U.K. sent to Rwanda, where they would stay if their asylum applications were approved.

The failed deal ultimately cost the U.K. nearly a billion dollars in public money, including around $300 million that it gave to Rwanda and didn’t get back.

Rwanda said that the deportees it will take from the U.S. will be resettled there and given work training, healthcare and help with accommodation.

Analysts say that African nations might be seeking a range of benefits from the Trump administration in return for taking deportees, including more favorable tariff rates, aid and other financial assistance, and even the easing of sanctions against some of their officials.

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AP news on the Trump administration: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump