US Government Spent Millions on Controversial Deportation Scheme
A new congressional investigation has exposed a controversial deportation practice where the United States government paid millions of dollars to foreign countries, including some of the world's most corrupt regimes, to accept migrants with no connection to those nations. The 30-page report from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democrats reveals that over $32 million was paid to five countries to accept approximately 300 third-country nationals deported from the US.
Exorbitant Costs Per Deportee
According to the report's analysis of government spending data and flight records, the Trump administration spent more than $1 million per person in some cases. The most extreme example involved Rwanda, which received $7.5 million plus an estimated $601,864 in flight costs to accept just seven people - approximately $1.1 million per individual. Similarly, Equatorial Guinea was paid $7.5 million to take 29 people, costing taxpayers an estimated $282,126 per person.
Other countries receiving payments included Palau ($7.5 million with no documented flights), Eswatini ($5.1 million for 15 people), and El Salvador ($4.76 million for about 250 people). Committee staff indicated the State Department is pursuing similar third-country deportation agreements with 70 to 80 additional countries.
Questionable Effectiveness and Oversight
The investigation 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, raising serious questions about the program's effectiveness. "The Trump administration is sometimes paying the country to take people, flying them there and then paying to take them to their home country. It doesn't make sense," one current US official told committee staff.
The practice has resulted in the US government paying twice for some deportees' travel. In one documented case, a Jamaican national was sent to Eswatini at an estimated cost of more than $181,000, only to be flown back to Jamaica on US-funded flights weeks later. The Jamaican government publicly stated it had "not refused the return of any of our nationals," contradicting administration claims that third countries are only used when home governments refuse to accept deportees back.
Corruption and Human Rights Concerns
The report identifies significant oversight problems with the millions of dollars sent to foreign governments, several of which have documented records of corruption and human rights abuses. Equatorial Guinea, which received $7.5 million to accept 29 people, ranks 172nd out of 182 countries for corruption according to Transparency International. This payment exceeded 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. The department appears to be relying on the foreign governments themselves to report on spending, rather than using independent auditors that typically oversee US assistance.
Legal and Ethical Questions
The investigation reveals the administration has pursued these arrangements through opaque negotiations involving political concessions or pressure tactics. South Sudan requested sanctions relief on government officials and US investment in oil and gas in exchange for accepting just eight deportees.
Perhaps most controversially, the administration has struck a deal with Iran to deport 400 Iranian nationals, including Christian converts, ethnic minorities, and political dissidents. At least eight people on the first flight begged not to be sent because they feared for their lives. "One man says he attempted suicide at a US detention facility in an attempt to avoid being sent back to Iran but was still deported," the report states.
Circumventing Legal Protections
The report raises concerns that 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."
Political Motivations and Criticism
Committee members described the practice as a "scare tactic" designed to intimidate migrants in the US. "This is a scare tactic for them to be able to tell people here in the US: if you don't self deport, you could get sent to South Sudan. You could get sent to Eswatini," a member of the committee told the Guardian.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on the foreign relations committee, wrote in the report's introduction: "At a time when the Administration is already straining its relationships with longstanding allies, it is building transactional relationships with corrupt and adversarial regimes - not around shared interests or strategic goals, but opaque deals that do not serve American taxpayers or American security."
The administration has defended the removals by claiming it must send migrants to third countries when they are "so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won't take them back," as the Department of Homeland Security wrote in a June press release. However, the report documents multiple cases where home governments were willing to accept their nationals or were never properly contacted.
