The Trump administration has deported 20 people to Liberia as the first transfer under an agreement that could send as many as 1,200 migrants to the west African country. Separately, the US has sent nearly 2,300 Mexican nationals to Guatemala this year despite objections from the Mexican government.
The group arrived at Roberts international airport. The Liberia-US agreement is one of the largest third-country deportation arrangements pursued by the administration since Trump returned to office last year. Liberia’s information minister, Jerolinmek Piah, said the 1,200 deportees will include African nationals as well as nationals from North America, South America, and the Caribbean. Liberia’s justice minister, Natu Oswald Tweh, said during a briefing on Tuesday that the majority had committed migration-related violations and offenses, and that they could seek asylum in Liberia if they wished.
The US agreed to extend visitor visas for Liberians from 12 to 36 months. The arrangement includes $124m in pledged assistance.
A growing web of agreements
Under a series of often-secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to nearly two dozen countries that are not their own, advocates say, with about 10 of them in Africa. A report by Refugees International and Human Rights First says the administration has reached deals with at least 35 countries and sent roughly 23,000 people to 26 of them as of early August, making the Liberia agreement the largest single arrangement so far. Immigration lawyers have said the administration uses third-country deportations as a legal loophole to indirectly force asylum seekers back to their home countries. In many cases, migrants are sent to countries they have never been to or where they face safety risks, leaving them with little choice other than to return to the home countries they fled.
A February report by Senate foreign relations committee Democrats found the administration had paid more than $32m to five governments, several with poor human rights records, to accept about 300 third-country deportees. The payments included $1.1m per person to Rwanda for seven deportees, and $7.5m to Equatorial Guinea for 29, a sum exceeding all US aid to that country over the previous eight years. More than 80% of those sent to third countries returned home anyway. The report cited cases where deportees with US court-ordered protections were removed to Ghana and Equatorial Guinea before being sent onward within days. The state department disputed the report.
Mexicans sent to Guatemala
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo confirmed on Wednesday that his country has received about 2,284 Mexican nationals deported from the US this year. “They are arriving on planes carrying Guatemalan returnees,” Arevalo said in a news conference. “In coordination with the Mexican government, what we have done is bring them through in transit so that we can return them to Mexican territory within 24 hours of their arrival in the country.”
The Trump administration has justified third-country deportations by saying the immigrants in question are unable to return to their home countries. That is not the case with Mexico. Mexico has consistently accepted US deportations. Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Thursday that the government has expressed its opposition to the practice to US authorities and reiterated that every Mexican citizen has the right to enter the country. Reports have also emerged that some Mexicans have been transported to Honduras. “They didn’t tell us anything, just to get on the flight,” Arturo Trejo, a Mexican man deported to Honduras, told Telemundo.
Mexico’s National Migration Institute told the Associated Press that the US justified the practice as deterrence, saying the US wants to prevent them from crossing back into its territory. The US Department of Homeland Security said it was “utilising all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history, just as President Trump promised.” Experts view the deportations as intimidation. “What we are seeing seems part of [a] broader trend towards a very severe US migration policy where they seek to instill terror and fear in migrants at all costs,” Ana Maria Mendez, Central America director at migrants rights group WOLA, told Reuters.
The US and Mexico remain top trading partners, with a cross-border exchange of roughly $964.1bn in 2025 alone. The Mexican government has sought to cooperate with the Trump administration on immigration enforcement while defending the rights of its citizens against alleged abuse. Critics have accused immigration agents of using excessive violence during raids.
At least 15 Mexican nationals have died in ICE custody since Trump returned to office, and another three died during enforcement operations, according to Al Jazeera. The Mexican government has filed complaints with state prosecutors in the US, denounced conditions in ICE detention centres as “incompatible with human rights standards,” and urged regular visits from Mexican consular officials.