Increasingly the US government is striking deals with countries to have them accept deportees from other countries. These are called “third country removals.” If the US government wants to deport a Venezuelan immigrant and Venezuela will not assist the US by providing a passport or agreeing to accept the immigrant, then the US will deport them to a third country. The third country could be anywhere in the world.
This was first brought to light with the US government’s attempts to deport Kilmar Ábrego García to Uganda. Garcia’s attorneys suggested that he be deported instead to Costa Rica, a Spanish speaking country where he could at least communicate with people and remain in the same hemisphere as his family. The government later said they would deport him to Costa Rica only if he agreed to remain in jail until his flight and pleaded guilty to human smuggling charges. The charges against him for human smuggling are absurd and there is no evidence he has been involved in human smuggling in any way. He declined their offer so now they plan on sending him to Uganda or another far away country, as a punishment.
A 30-page report from Senate foreign relations committee indicated the administration paid Equatorial Guinea $7.5m to take 29 people, costing taxpayers an estimated $282,126 per person. Eswatini was paid $5.1m for 15 people, and El Salvador $4.76m for about 250 people. Palau was paid $7.5m and there are no documented flights of any people being sent there.
The administration similarly paid Equatorial Guinea $7.5m to take 29 people, costing taxpayers an estimated $282,126 per person. Palau was paid $7.5m with no documented flights, Eswatini was paid $5.1m for 15 people, and El Salvador $4.76m for about 250 people. The administration paid Rwanda $7.5m plus an estimated $601,864 in flight costs for just seven people, more than $1,000,000 per person.
The Trump administration paid more than $1 Million per person in some cases to send them to a country they had absolutely no ties to, at taxpayer expense, only for them to end being sent back to their home country anyway.
According to reporting from the Guardian, the Trump administration is pursuing agreements with 70-80 countries to accept third party removals. Third party removals are coming at an outrageous cost to the taxpayers and the Guardian found that more than 80% of migrants sent to these third countries have already returned to their home nations or are in the process of doing so. This raises obvious questions as to why they were not deported directly in the first place or if it is legal to circumvent laws preventing the US from deporting someone to their home country by using this procedure knowing the results will be the same.
There are cases of the US government paying twice for some deportees to be shipped all around the globe for no reason. In one case, a Jamaican national was sent to Eswatini in Africa at an estimated cost of more than $181,000, only to be flown back to Jamaica on US-funded flights several weeks later. The Trump administration claimed this was due to Jamaica first refusing to accept their citizen but the Jamaican government publicly stated it had not refused the return of any of any of their nationals. There have been similar incidents with other countries contradicting the administration’s claims that third countries are only used when home governments refuse to accept deportees back.
The report identifies serious concerns over a lack of oversight for the millions of dollars sent to foreign governments with documented records of corruption and human rights abuses. Equatorial Guinea, which received $7.5m to accept 29 people, ranks 172nd out of 182 countries for corruption according to Transparency International. The payment exceeds all US assistance provided to the country over the previous eight years combined. Despite these red flags, there is no evidence the state department is monitoring how the funds are being used.
In the case of El Salvador, which received at least $4.76m, more than 250 Venezuelans were sent from the US and detained at the Cecot prison, where Human Rights Watch has documented credible reports of torture. The administration also returned several MS-13 gang leaders who had been serving as US informants, undermining a long-running federal investigation, according to the report.
The administration has struck a deal with Iran to deport 400 Iranian nationals, including Christian converts, ethnic minorities and political dissidents. The Guardian reported that at least eight people on the first flight begged not to be sent because they feared for their lives. One attempted suicide while in US detention to avoid being sent back to Iran.
The report also raises concerns the administration may be using third countries to circumvent US immigration law. Since September 2025, the majority of migrants flown to third countries had US court-ordered protections, meaning the US could not legally send them to their home countries due to the likelihood they would face persecution, torture or death. Yet within days of arriving in Ghana and Equatorial Guinea, many were sent back anyway.
A federal district judge, reviewing removals to Ghana, said in September: “These actions also appear to be part of a pattern and widespread effort to evade the government’s legal obligations by doing indirectly what it cannot do directly.”
“These actions also appear to be part of a pattern and widespread effort to evade the government’s legal obligations by doing indirectly what it cannot do directly.”
– Federal District Court Judge
Ranking Member Shaheen, Senators Coons, Murphy, Kaine, Merkley, Booker, Van Hollen, Duckworth and Rosen Publish Major New Report on True Cost of Trump Administration’s Third Country Deportation Deals
“This report outlines the troubling practice by the Trump Administration of deporting individuals to third countries—places where these people have no connection—at great expense to the American taxpayer and raises serious questions,” said Ranking Member Shaheen. “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. For an Administration that claims to be reigning in fraud, waste and abuse, this policy is the epitome of all three.”
The report comes as the Administration is aggressively seeking to strip hundreds of thousands of migrants of legal status in the United States through the ending of temporary protected status and humanitarian parole, among other avenues, increasing the risk of expanded third country deportations.
This report identifies six central ways in which the Administration’s use of third country deportations has undermined U.S. interests:
- Expensive and Ineffective Operations: The Administration has spent tens of millions of dollars to move a relatively small number of migrants to third countries, in some cases paying more than one million dollars per person, with little measurable impact on its deportation agenda.
- Needlessly Wasting Taxpayer Funds: In many cases, migrants could have been returned directly to their home countries, avoiding costly third country deportations. As of January 2026, more than eighty percent of the migrants sent to third countries paid by the United States to take them in have already returned to their country of origin or are in the process of doing so. In some cases, the U.S. paid to fly migrants to third countries only to later pay again for them to fly to their home country.
- Providing Money to Corrupt Governments Without Oversight: The United States has sent more than thirty-two million dollars to foreign governments in direct connection with third country deportation deals, including those with records of corruption, human rights abuses and human trafficking, without monitoring how the money is used or whether taxpayer funds are being used to facilitate corruption, human rights abuses or human trafficking. It is unclear how much additional U.S. funding is being redirected to indirectly support these deals.
- Failure to Monitor and Enforce Agreements: The State Department is not tracking foreign government compliance with diplomatic assurances or enforcing agreement terms, even where evidence suggests foreign governments are violating their commitments. In at least one country, U.S. officials told Committee staff that they were instructed by the Trump Administration officials to not follow up on how deportees were being treated.
- Secret Deals That Do Not Serve American Interests: Third country deportation agreements have become a central feature of U.S. bilateral relations, involving cash payments, political concessions and coercion, without transparency about the full extent of what the United States is giving in return or the pressures it is exerting. In addition, the Administration is making secret deals with adversarial regimes such as Iran, to accept their nationals back.
- Circumventing U.S. Immigration Law: Evidence suggests the Administration is using third countries to carry out removals that U.S. law would otherwise prohibit, such as sending protected individuals onward to countries where they may face persecution or death.
See executive summary of the report here or see the full report below.