US Sends First 20 Deportees to African Country Under New Agreement

• The first 20 deportees landed at Roberts International Airport near Monrovia on Thursday under a new US-Liberia agreement
• Liberia's justice minister said most deportees committed migration-related violations and can apply for asylum in the country
• The 1,200 migrants expected include nationals from Africa, North America, South America and the Caribbean

Twenty deportees arrived in Liberia on Thursday after the United States sent them as the first batch under a new bilateral agreement that will see the West African country receive up to 1,200 migrants in total.

The group landed at Roberts International Airport outside the capital, Monrovia. The deal is among the largest third-country deportation arrangements pursued by the Trump administration as part of its broader immigration crackdown.

Liberian Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah said the 1,200 deportees would not be limited to African nationals. The group will also include people from North America, South America and the Caribbean, AP reports.

What Liberia Said About the Deportees

At a briefing on Tuesday, Liberian Justice Minister Natu Oswald Tweh said most of the deportees had committed migration-related violations. She added that those sent to Liberia could apply for asylum in the country if they chose to do so.

The US-Liberia arrangement is part of a wider pattern in which the Trump administration has struck deals, many of them confidential, with nearly two dozen countries to accept deportees who are not their own nationals.

About ten of those agreements involve African nations, according to immigration advocates.

Concerns Raised by Immigration Lawyers

Immigration lawyers have described the use of third-country deportations as a legal workaround that effectively pushes asylum-seekers back towards the home countries they originally fled.

In many of these cases, migrants are sent to countries they have no ties to or where they face security risks, leaving them with little practical option but to return to the places they were trying to escape.

US publishes 32 names, photos of Ghanaian criminals to be deported

Earlier, Legit.ng reported that the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had released the names and photographs of 32 Ghanaian nationals identified for deportation under its "Worst of the Worst" criminal aliens programme.

The list forms part of a broader immigration enforcement campaign targeting foreign nationals with criminal records.