Rwanda is in talks with the Trump administration about taking in migrants that have been deported from the United States, potentially making it the first African country to enter into such an agreement since President Trump took office and began a sweeping crackdown on migration.
Rwanda’s foreign minister, Olivier J.P. Nduhungirehe, said late on Sunday that his country’s government was in “early stage” talks about receiving third-country deportees from the United States.
“It is true that we are in discussions with the United States,” Mr. Nduhungirehe said in an interview with Rwanda TV, the state broadcaster. “These talks are still ongoing, and it would be premature to conclude how they will unfold,” he added.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rwanda has long positioned itself as a partner to Western nations seeking to curb migration, offering to provide asylum to migrants or house them as they await resettlement elsewhere, sometimes in return for payment. But critics say that sending asylum seekers to Rwanda is unsafe, citing the country’s poor record on human rights, its limited resources, and the authorities’ previous intimidation and surveillance of migrants and refugees.
The Trump administration has deployed a number of hard-line tactics to curb migration, including deporting individuals on well-publicized flights. Mr. Trump invoked a centuries-old law in March to deport hundreds of alleged gang members from Venezuela to El Salvador, even as a federal judge sought to halt them. Washington has been looking for more countries that would be willing to take in people expelled from the United States.
The Trump administration has also been asking countries to take back their citizens if they are deported from the United States and taking punitive measures against those nations if they do not. In early April, Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked visas for all South Sudanese nationals amid a dispute over the East African country’s failure to accept its deported citizens.
If Rwanda agrees to a deal with the Trump administration, it would be the African country’s latest agreement to take in migrants.
The small, landlocked nation hosts hundreds of African refugees rescued from Libya and awaiting resettlement elsewhere in a joint partnership with the United Nations refugee agency. It has also signed a deal with Denmark to improve cooperation on asylum and migration, and it entered into a secretive partnership with Israel to receive deported African migrants.
Rwanda also agreed on a deal with Britain to receive third-country asylum seekers in 2022 in a contentious plan that was later deemed unlawful by the British Supreme Court. Last year, the British government, then controlled by the Conservative Party, passed legislation to override the court’s decision and declare Rwanda a “safe country.”
But only four people voluntarily left for Rwanda under the plan, and when the Conservatives lost the general election last July, the new Labour government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer scrapped the deal. The program cost British taxpayers 715 million pounds, or about $949 million, with some £290 million going to Rwanda. Rwanda’s government has said it will not repay the money.
The discussions between Rwanda and the United States, first reported by The Washington Post last week, coincide with a U.S. effort to mediate a peace deal in the war between Rwanda and neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Reuters news agency has reported that the United States deported an Iraqi refugee, Omar Abdulsattar Ameen, to Rwanda. Mr. Nduhungirehe did not refer to that case during his interview on Rwanda TV.
Arafat Mugabo contributed reporting.
Abdi Latif Dahir is the East Africa correspondent for The Times, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He covers a broad range of issues including geopolitics, business, society and arts.
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