Trump administration seeks new deportation deals with nations across Africa, Asia, and Europe

Donald Trump's gameplan for deportation

The Trump administration is ramping up efforts to strike deals with nations around the world to accept migrants the US is trying to deport, even if those migrants are not their own citizens. In a move that echoes past controversial agreements, officials are negotiating with governments in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe to ease deportation backlogs and fulfil the president’s pledge of historic mass removals, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Building a global deportation pipeline

At the heart of the initiative is a February operation that sent more than 100 Middle Eastern migrants to Panama—a country that detained them and began efforts to send them to their home nations. Now, the Trump administration wants to replicate that model globally. According to officials familiar with the talks, the administration is in discussions with Libya, Rwanda, Benin, Eswatini, Moldova, Mongolia, and Kosovo about accepting migrants, potentially in exchange for financial incentives or diplomatic goodwill.

Officials say the US is not necessarily seeking formal treaties. The administration remains deliberately flexible about what happens to deported individuals—whether they are detained, granted asylum, or sent elsewhere is up to the host country.

A push for ‘safe third country’ agreements

In parallel, the administration is also negotiating longer-term “safe third country” arrangements in Latin America, which would redirect asylum seekers away from the US Honduras is reportedly close to finalizing such a deal, with Costa Rica also in talks. Under these agreements, migrants could be required to apply for asylum in those countries rather than in the United States.

Stephen Miller, the president’s deputy chief of staff and the architect of many of Trump’s immigration policies, is leading the push. Miller has instructed agencies to expand the list of destination countries and has intensified pressure on the State Department and Department of Homeland Security to identify new options, particularly as some countries—like Venezuela—refuse to cooperate with deportation flights.

A controversial and opaque process

The initiative has raised alarms among human rights advocates and former diplomats. Many of the countries under consideration have troubling records on treatment of migrants and detainees. In Libya, for instance, the US government has previously raised concerns about torture and abuse in detention centres. In Rwanda, human rights groups have documented political repression and mistreatment of refugees.

“Most of the countries that are willing to go along with this are probably going to be problematic countries,” said Ricardo Zuniga, a former Obama-era National Security Council official. “Even they are asking: What’s in it for us?”

None of the governments named in the negotiations have publicly commented.

Using wartime powers to expedite removals

The administration’s aggressive stance on removals has extended into controversial legal territory. In March, Trump invoked the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act to deport over 130 alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador, citing wartime authority. The move, however, was swiftly challenged in court and temporarily blocked. A federal judge later questioned whether the administration violated the injunction—an accusation the White House has denied.

Those deportees are now being held in El Salvador’s notorious Cecot mega-prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center, which has become a symbol of President Nayib Bukele’s hardline security policies.

A strategy with international parallels—and limits

Trump’s current plan echoes a short-lived arrangement from his first term, when the US deported migrants to Guatemala as part of an “asylum cooperative agreement.” That program was disrupted by the pandemic and never scaled. Now, former Trump officials have drawn inspiration from the UK’s 2022 deal with Rwanda, in which Britain paid $155 million to relocate asylum seekers. That plan collapsed amid fierce legal and political challenges, and only four people were ever relocated.

Still, current Trump aides view such deals as a roadmap for bypassing legal hurdles at home.

As President Trump pushes forward with his second-term immigration crackdown, his team is crafting an increasingly global infrastructure for deportation. But legal challenges, logistical complications, and moral scrutiny are likely to intensify. With much of the world watching—and some countries pushing back—the question remains whether this approach will serve as a deterrent or a deepening flashpoint in US immigration policy.