Rwanda Agrees to Accept 250 Deportees From US Under Third-Country Plan

Two other African nations have already accepted third-country deportees from the United States.

Illegal immigrants await takeoff for a removal flight at the Tucson International Airport, Ariz., on Jan. 23, 2025. Dept. of Defense photo by Senior Airman Devlin Bishop

Rwanda has struck a deal to accept up to 250 deportees from the United States as part of a third-country deportation plan.

According to an Aug. 5 announcement from the Rwanda government, the nation will accept up to 250 deportees who are neither citizens of the United States nor of Rwanda.

Under the Trump administration’s third-country deportation program, 13 illegal immigrants have already been sent to the African nations of Sudan and Eswatini.

The administration previously deported hundreds of Venezuelans and others from countries without U.S. deportation agreements to Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Panama.

Rwanda, a nation in Central Africa with a population of approximately 15 million, entered into talks with the United States about third-country deportation in May of this year.

At the time, Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe said on RwandaTV, a state-run broadcaster, that he couldn’t say how the talks would end, but the conversation was ongoing.

A White House official told The Epoch Times that “the United States is constantly engaged in diplomatic conversations with foreign nations who are willing to assist us in removing the illegal aliens that Joe Biden allowed to infiltrate American communities.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to the office of the prime minister of Rwanda for comment. 

In 2022, Rwanda brokered a deal with then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to accept migrants seeking asylum in the UK. The deal allowed illegal immigrants in the UK to be relocated to the central African nation and, if their asylum claim was accepted, to stay there.

The United States has already sent a number of illegal immigrants to nations in Africa. Thus far, the Trump administration has sent eight men to South Sudan and an additional five men to Eswatini.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the crimes of the deportees sent to Eswatini were “so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.”

All those deported to South Sudan and Eswatini were described as dangerous criminals who were already convicted of crimes in the United States. The two African nations have not outlined their deportation deals with the United States.

The first flight carrying deportees of varying nationalities from the United States was sent to Panama in mid-February.

More than 100 deportees from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam were transported by the Air Force to the Central American nation.

In April of this year, a federal district court issued an injunction preventing the DHS from deporting illegal immigrants to a nation from which they did not originate.

That was later rescinded after an emergency application was submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court, which argued that there was a “crisis of illegal immigration.”

The United states has entered third-country deportation deals with a number of nations under Section 241(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to remove aliens to any country that will accept them if they are refused by their nation or origin, or the country in which they boarded the transport that brought them to the United Staes.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.