The Trump administration has spent more than $1m per person to deport some migrants to countries they have no connection to, only to see many sent back to their home nations at further taxpayer expense, according to a new congressional investigation.
A 30-page report from Senate foreign relations committee Democrats, released on Thursday, details how the US government paid more than $32m to five foreign governments – including some of the world’s most corrupt regimes – to accept approximately 300 third-country nationals deported from the US.
In the most extreme case, the administration paid Rwanda $7.5m plus an estimated $601,864 in flight costs to accept just seven people – about $1.1m per individual. The administration similarly paid Equatorial Guinea $7.5m to take 29 people, costing taxpayers an estimated $282,126 per person. Palau was paid $7.5m with no documented flights, Eswatini was paid $5.1m for 15 people, and El Salvador $4.76m for about 250 people.
More than 80% of migrants sent to these third countries have already returned to their home nations or are in the process of doing so, the investigation found. In one case, a Jamaican national was sent to Eswatini at an estimated cost of more than $181,000, only to be flown back to Jamaica on US-funded flights weeks later. The Jamaican government publicly stated it had “not refused the return of any of our nationals”, contradicting administration claims.
The report identifies a lack of oversight for the millions of dollars sent to foreign governments, several of which have documented records of corruption and human rights abuses. Equatorial Guinea, which received $7.5m to accept 29 people, ranks 172nd out of 182 countries for corruption according to Transparency International. The payment exceeds all US assistance provided to the country over the previous eight years combined.
