MONROVIA, July 10 — The Trump administration has pressed five African leaders to take in migrants from other countries when they are deported by the United States (US), two officials familiar with the discussions told Reuters on Thursday.
The plan was presented to the presidents of Liberia, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, and Gabon during their visit to the White House on Wednesday, according to a US and a Liberian official who spoke anonymously.
The White House and official spokespeople for the five nations did not respond to requests for comment. It was not immediately clear if any of the countries had agreed to the plan.
Since returning to office in January, US President Donald Trump has been pressing to speed up deportations, including by sending migrants to third countries when there are problems or delays over sending them to their home nations.
On Saturday, eight migrants — from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Sudan, and Vietnam, according to their lawyers — arrived in South Sudan’s capital after they lost a legal battle to halt their transfer.
Wednesday’s meeting at the White House had been organised partly to talk about the deportation plan, the US official said. Liberia’s government was “preparing to accommodate” an effort to house migrants in its capital Monrovia, the US official added.
The Liberian official confirmed that the deportation plan was a focus of Wednesday’s meeting, but did not say whether Liberian President Joseph Boakai had agreed to it.
On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that an internal State Department document sent to the African governments before the meeting called on them to agree to the “dignified, safe, and timely transfer from the United States” of third-country nationals.
Under the proposed plan, the governments would agree not to send the migrants “to their home country or country of former habitual residence until a final decision has been made” on their US asylum bids, according to the report.
Reuters has not seen a copy of the State Department document and could not confirm its contents.
In public comments at Wednesday’s meeting, Trump told the five leaders he was shifting the US approach to Africa from aid to trade, and that the United States was a better partner than China.
“I hope we can bring down the high rates of people overstaying visas, and also make progress on the safe third country agreements,” he added.
Trump was accompanied by Massad Boulos, senior adviser for Africa, and aide Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner.
— Reuters
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