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The US has deported five migrants to the tiny southern African nation of Eswatini as President Donald Trump’s administration steps up its aggressive deportation campaign to third countries.
The five, who are from Cuba, Laos, Jamaica, Vietnam and Yemen, arrived in the southern African country, formerly known as Swaziland, on what the Department of Homeland Security called a “safe third country deportation flight” from the US, landing in the early hours of Wednesday local time.
“This flight took individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the department, wrote on X, saying they had been convicted of crimes ranging from murder and assault to robbery.
She added that, thanks to Trump and Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, they were now “off American soil”.
Eswatini, a country of 1.2mn people wedged between South Africa and Mozambique, is generally considered a safe country with relatively low crime rates.
Last month, the US Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to continue its quick-fire deportation of migrants to third countries, saying there was no need to slow the process by giving individuals an opportunity to contest their deportations. All that was required was an assurance from the State Department that they would not be harmed in the third country, the court ruled.
It is the second time the Trump administration has deported people to Africa.
This month, after long legal delays, Washington sent eight individuals from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan. The men had been held for weeks on a military base in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, while courts debated their fate.
Nigeria’s foreign minister Yusuf Tuggar said last week that Washington had put “considerable pressure” on several countries, including Nigeria, to accept deportees but that Nigeria already had 230mn people of its own and would find it difficult to accommodate refugees with a criminal record.
“The US is mounting considerable pressure on African countries to accept Venezuelans to be deported from the US, some straight out of prison,” Tuggar told Nigerian broadcaster Channels TV. “We have enough problems of our own . . . for crying out loud,” he said.
Trump met the leaders of Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal last week for a televised lunch focused on trade and investment opportunities, at which he said he hoped to “make progress on . . . safe, third-country agreements” for deported migrants. It is unclear what any of the countries agreed to.
In Eswatini, an absolute monarchy that was previously home to the world’s worst HIV epidemic, people reacted strongly on social media, saying that Washington was treating Eswatini as a dumping ground.
A person identified as Vikimpi Mngomezulu posted on Facebook: “Parliament must convene an emergency session today to reverse the US decision and also to reverse any government agreement it may have secretly entered into with the US. We accept refugees but not criminals.”
Officials from the Eswatini government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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