The Trump administration has spent over $40 million on deporting people to the wrong country, only for most migrants to end up back in their nation of origin.
A 30-page report by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, released on Friday, details the huge cost to American taxpayers of what one U.S. official called a “scare tactic” and a “hugely expensive deterrent” operation by the administration.
According to the report, more than $32 million has been paid to five countries—some with a history of corrupt governments and human rights abuses—as of January, to accept roughly 300 third-country nationals deported from the U.S. The term third country refers to the U.S. deporting migrants to nations that aren’t their own.
The five countries that received lump-sum payments from the United States with minimal oversight of how the funds are being spent are Rwanda, El Salvador, Eswatini, Palau, and Equatorial Guinea, which ranks 172nd out of 182 countries in a global corruption tracker.
“This is not diplomacy but human trafficking disguised as a deportation deal,” Eswatini’s largest political opposition party said, as opposition groups and civil society expressed outrage over the arrival of deportees.
About 80 percent of deportees have either returned to their countries of origin or are currently in the process of doing so, the report notes, citing Ghana as an example.
According to court filings, U.S. officials told migrants headed to Ghana even before they arrived that they would eventually be sent to their home countries.
“While at the fuel stop in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the apparent head ICE official on the plane… told me that those on the plane were being sent to Ghana and that Ghana would send us to our home countries,” one migrant said of their deportation.
Migrants are often deported on military aircraft that cost more than $32,000 per hour, and the committee report estimates that the administration has spent roughly $7.2 million on these third-country deportation flights—only for many to be flown back to their home countries on additional U.S.-funded flights, doubling the taxpayer expense.
Since the start of his second term, President Donald Trump, 79, has pursued an immigration enforcement agenda aimed at “the largest domestic deportation operation,” with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claiming there were “more than 675,000 deportations” in his first year in office.
As part of this push, in March, the administration deported roughly 250 Venezuelan men deemed to be members of the street gang Tren de Aragua in El Salvador, invoking the Alien Enemies Act.
On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that the men were denied due process and ordered the Trump administration to allow those who wish to return to the United States—a move that will likely impose another cost on taxpayers.
In exchange for accepting deportees, the report notes that the government of El Salvador received “in-kind and financial support” from the Trump administration, including the return of several high-profile MS-13 leaders who had been serving as U.S. informants at the request of the El Salvador president, Nayib Bukele.
The consequences for countries that refuse to accept deportees were seen in early 2025, when Colombian President Gustavo Petro barred two U.S. military planes carrying deported migrants from landing, prompting the Trump administration to threaten tariffs on the country’s exports.
The information that, to date, the Trump administration has paid at least one country more than $1 million per third-country national received comes at a time when the president is facing low approval ratings, partly as a result of Americans struggling with an affordability crisis.
“Through its third-country deportation deals, the Trump Administration is putting millions of taxpayer dollars into the hands of foreign governments, while turning a blind eye to the human costs and potentially undermining our diplomatic relationships,” said Jeanne Shaheen, a ranking member of the committee.
The Daily Beast has contacted the US Department of State for comment.
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