African state receives new deportees from US
Ten more migrants expelled from the US landed in Eswatini on Monday under Washington’s controversial deportation program, the government of the southern African nation has said.
The Eswatini authorities said in a Facebook post that the deportees would be held in a secured facility while arrangements were made for their return to their countries of origin.
“The nationals who arrived today are in good health and are undergoing admission procedures,” the statement read.
The government said it was working with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on the process but gave no details about the migrants’ nationalities or why they had been removed from the US.
According to The Guardian, US-based lawyer Tin Thanh Nguyen said the group included three Vietnamese nationals, one Filipino, one Cambodian, and several others. Nguyen also represents another Vietnamese migrant and a Laotian deported to Eswatini in July.
Eswatini, Rwanda, and South Sudan have already received deportees, including citizens of Jamaica, Vietnam, and Laos, in recent weeks after the US Supreme Court cleared the White House to proceed with removals. In August, Uganda confirmed a temporary deal with Washington to accept migrants without criminal records, although the terms remain undisclosed.
Last month, Ghanian President John Dramani Mahama said Accra had agreed to take in an unspecified number of deportees at Washington’s request. Fourteen people have already arrived, including Nigerians and one Gambian. However, Ghanian Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said the decision to accept West African migrants was based on humanitarian grounds, not financial benefit, and does not mean support for Washington’s policy.
In a separate development, a group of Zimbabwean nationals deported from the US arrived in Harare on a chartered flight at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport. The same aircraft reportedly dropped off deportees in Ghana and Zambia before continuing to Mozambique.
Human rights groups have condemned the US program, saying it violates international law, while the African Union’s human rights body has warned that such deals risk turning the continent into a “dumping ground” for arbitrary expulsions.
