Photo credit: the Guardian
The United States’ recent expulsions of third-country nationals to Eswatini, Ghana, Rwanda and South Africa have exposed a lot of people to a risk of arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and refoulement.
Human Rights’ Watch reports that the deals that facilitate these transfers, some of which include US financial assistance, are part of US policy approach that violates international human rights laws and is designed to instrumentalize human suffering as a deterrent to migration.
Allan Ngari, Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch said, “These agreements make African governments partners in the Trump goverment’s horrifying violations of immigrants’ human rights. The African governments implementing these deals risk violating international law, including the prohibitions against refoulement and arbitrary detention.”
In August 2025, Yolande Makolo, a spokesperson of the Rwandan government, said the country had agreed to accept up to 250 deportees.
Human Rights Watch has seen the written agreement between the United States and Eswatini. The US will provide $5.1 million to “build [Eswatini’s] border and migration management capacity” and Eswatini will accept up to 160 deportees from the US. Eswatini has received at least five people from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen. It is reportedly holding them in the Matsapha Correctional Complex under harsh conditions. A local officiak said Eswatini is about receiving another 150 people. Lawyers and civil society groups have challenged the legality of detaining these people.
South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed it was holding seven foreign nationals deported from the United States in July, while an eighth person person, a South Sudanese national was released to his family.
In Uganda, the Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed that a temporary bilateral agreement has been reached with the United States. Uganda will receive third-country deportees from the United States, but “individual(s) with criminal records and unaccompanied minors will not be accepted”. Preference will be given to persons of African origin.
Ghanaian President John Mahama has confirmed his government has agreed to accept third-party nationals from the United States. This agreement is limited to West African nationals. Five citizens of Nigeria and the Gambia have been expelled to Ghana under the agreement. Prior to their expulsion, US immigration judges had granted all of them fear-based immigration relief, either withholding their removal under the US Immigration and Naturality Act or deferring their removal under the Convention Against Torture.
A bisexual man among the five said in a sworn declaration filed in US federal court that Ghanaian authorities had returned him to his country of origin after his expulsion from the United States. It shows the danger that expulsion agreements will lead to the return of people to countries where US courts had determined they face a serious risk of persecution or torture.
In view of the abusive US immigration policies that underpin them, Human Rights Watch urges African governments to enter into agreements to accept third-country deportees from the United States and to terminate those that are already in effect.
