Rwanda agreed to accept up to 250 deportees from the United States under the Trump administration's expanding third-country deportation programme, its government said Tuesday.
The US is seeking more deals with African countries to take deportees under President Donald Trump’s plans to expel people who he says entered the US illegally and are “the worst of the worst”.
Rwanda government spokesperson Yolande Makolo confirmed the details in an email. She didn't immediately give a timeline for the deportations.
The US has already sent 13 immigrants to two other African nations, South Sudan and Eswatini. It has also deported hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama.
The Trump administration described the eight men sent to South Sudan and the five men sent to Eswatini last month as dangerous criminals who had been convicted of crimes in the US. Both those countries have declined to give details of their deals with the US.
Rwanda, an East African nation of around 15 million people, struck a deal in 2022 with the UK to accept migrants while their claims for asylum in Britain were being processed.
That contentious agreement was criticised by rights groups and others as being unethical and unworkable and was ultimately scrapped, with Britain's Supreme Court ruling in 2023 that it was unlawful.
Rwanda said in May it was in negotiations with the US over a deportation agreement.
