Trump administration has floated deporting third-country nationals to Africa. Here's what we know

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Trump administration has floated deporting third-country nationals to Africa. Here's what we know

2025-07-13 03:28 Last Updated At：03:30

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — South Sudan has accepted eight third-country deportees from the U.S. and Rwanda says it's in talk with the administration of President Donald Trump on a similar deal, while Nigeria says it's rejecting pressure to do the same.

Although few details are known, these initiatives in Africa mark an expansion in U.S. efforts to deport people to countries other than their own. The United States has sent hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama but has yet to announce any major deals with governments in Africa, Asia or Europe.

While proponents see such programs as a way of deterring what they describe as unmanageable levels of migration, human rights advocates have raised concerns over sending migrants to countries where they have no ties or that may have a history of rights violations.

Last year, U.K. Supreme Court ruled that a similar plan to deport rejected asylum-seekers to Rwanda was illegal.

Earlier this week, Trump held a summit with five West African leaders in the White House, which highlighted the new transactional U.S. policy towards the continent.

Trump discussed migration with the leaders of Liberia, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Gabon, including the need for countries to accept the return of their nationals who do not have the right to stay in the U.S., as well as the possibility of accepting deported nationals of third countries.

U.S. border tsar Tom Homan told the media Friday that the Trump administration hopes to forge deals with “many countries” to accept deported migrants.

“If there is a significant public threat or national security threat — there’s one thing for sure — they’re not walking the streets of this country. We’ll find a third, safe nation to send them to, and we’re doing it," he said.

Liberian President Joseph Boakai told media in Liberia on Friday that third-country nationals were discussed but that Trump had not directly asked Liberia to accept such deportees.

“They’re not forcing anybody, but they want us to know that this is the concern they have, and they are asking how can we contribute, how can we help?” he said.

President Umaro Sissoco Embaló of Guinea Bissau said Trump discussed the topic during the summit, but did not specifically ask for the African nations to agree to accept deportees. Other West African governments did not reply to a request for comment.

Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Yussuf Tuggar, meanwhile, said such conversations were being held between U.S. representatives and several African countries, though he declined provide details.

He said late Thursday that Nigeria would not bow to what he described as pressure to accept third-country deportees, saying the country had enough problems of its own.

Experts say some African countries may seek to facilitate U.S. deportation programs in order to earn good will in negotiations over tariffs, cuts in U.S. aid or visa restrictions that have hit several African countries in recent months.

Beverly Ochieng, an analyst at the security consulting firm Control Risks, said countries may want to reach a migrant deal to avoid a situation "where they lose access to the U.S. economy or economic initiatives and bilateral relations.'

Those factors are especially important, “in light of the withdrawal of developmental aid,” Ochieng told The Associated Press.

So far, the only African country to accept third-country deportees from the U.S. has been South Sudan, which accepted eight deportees with criminal convictions, only one of whom was from South Sudan.

It is unclear what deal may have been struck between the two countries. The South Sudanese Foreign Ministry has declined to answer questions.

Alan Boswell, the Horn of Africa program director at the International Crisis Group think tank, said the South Sudan would have “a number of reasons to want to placate a Trump administration, be that avoiding visa bans, warding off more sanctions against its elite, or generally trying to curry favor.”

The decision has drawn criticism from South Sudanese civil society and some members of government. “South Sudan is not a dumping ground for criminals,” said Edmund Yakani, a prominent civil society leader in the country.

Homan, the U.S. border tsar, said Friday he was unsure of the situation of the eight men, saying they were no longer in U.S. custody.

Lawyers and advocates are concerned about that kind of uncertainty over the legal status and safety of such migrants, said Michelle Mittelstadt, a spokesperson for Migration Policy Institute.

“There’s a lot of confusion and lack of clarity over who actually has control of these individuals when they’re deported to a third country,” Mittelstadt said.

Rwanda’s foreign minister told the AP last month that talks were under way with the U.S. about a potential agreement to host deported migrants, without providing details. The U.S. State Department declined to comment on a potential deal. Rights groups have long criticized Rwanda for their human rights record, especially the deaths in Rwandan custody of some perceived government critics.

The U.K. struck a deal with Rwanda in 2022 to send migrants who arrive in the U.K. as stowaways or in boats to the East African country, where their asylum claims would be processed and, if successful, they would stay. But the plan was stalled by legal challenges and criticized by human rights groups.

Associated Press writers Mark Banchereau and Wilson McMakin in Dakar, Senegal; Ope Adetayo in Lagos, Nigeria; and Joseph Falzetta in Juba, South Sudan, contributed to this report.

Hennepin County prosecutor calls on the public to share Renee Good shooting evidence with her office

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty on Friday called on members of the public to send any video or other evidence in the fatal shooting of Renee Good directly to her office, challenging the Trump administration's decision to leave the investigation solely to the FBI.

Moriarty said that although her office has collaborated effectively with the FBI in past cases, she is concerned by the Trump administration's decision to bar state and local agencies from playing any role in the investigation into Wednesday's killing of Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.

She also said that despite the Trump administration’s insistence that the officer who shot Good has complete legal immunity, that isn’t the case.

“We do have jurisdiction to make this decision with what happened in this case,” she said at a news conference. “It does not matter that it was a federal law enforcement agent.”

Moriarty said her office would post a link for the public to submit footage of the shooting, even though she acknowledged that she wasn't sure what legal outcome submissions might produce.

The prosecutor's announcement came on a third day of Minneapolis protests over Good's killing and a day after federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in Portland, Oregon.

Good's wife, Becca Good, released a statement to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday saying, “kindness radiated out of her.”

"On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns," Becca Good said.

“I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him,” she wrote. “That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.”

The reaction to the Good's shooting was immediate in the city where police killed George Floyd in 2020, with hundreds of protesters converging on the shooting scene and the school district canceling classes for the rest of the week as a precaution.

On Thursday night, hundreds marched in freezing rain down one of Minneapolis’ major thoroughfares, chanting “ICE out now!” and holding signs saying, “Killer ice off our streets." And on Friday, protesters were out again demonstrating outside of a federal facility that is serving as a hub for the immigration crackdown that began Tuesday in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Authorities erected barricades outside the facility Friday.

City workers, meanwhile, removed makeshift barricades made of old Christmas trees and other debris that had been blocking the streets near the scene of Good's shooting. Officials said they would leave up a shrine to the 37-year-old mother of three.

The Portland shootings happened outside a hospital Thursday afternoon. Federal immigration officers shot and wounded a man and woman, identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Venezuela nationals Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, who were inside a vehicle, and their conditions weren't immediately known. The FBI and the Oregon Department of Justice were investigating.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council called on ICE to end all operations in the city until a full investigation is completed. Hundreds protested Thursday night at a local ICE building. Early Friday, Portland police reported that officers had arrested several protesters after asking the to get out of a street to allow traffic to flow.

Just as it did following Good's shooting, DHS defended the actions of the officers in Portland, saying it occurred after a Venezuelan man with alleged gang ties and who was involved in a recent shooting tried to “weaponize” his vehicle to hit the officers. It wasn't immediately clear if the shootings were captured on video, as Good's was.

The Minneapolis shooting happened on the second day of the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities, which Homeland Security said is the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever. More than 2,000 officers are taking part and Noem said they have made more than 1,500 arrests.

The government is also shifting immigration officers to Minneapolis from sweeps in Louisiana, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. This represents a pivot, as the Louisiana crackdown that began in December had been expected to last into February.

Good's death — at least the fifth tied to immigration sweeps since Trump took office — has resonated far beyond Minneapolis, as protests happening in other places, including Texas, California, Detroit and Missouri.

In Washington, D.C., on Thursday, a woman held a sign that said, “Stop Trump’s Gestapo,” as hundreds of people marched to the White House. Protesters in Pflugerville, Texas, north of Austin, banged on the walls of an ICE facility. And a man in Los Angeles burned an American flag in front of federal detention center.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, President Donald Trump and others in his administration have repeatedly characterized the Minneapolis shooting as an act of self-defense and cast Good as a villain, suggesting she used her vehicle as a weapon to attack the officer who shot her.

But state and local officials and protesters rejected that characterization, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey saying videos show the self-defense argument is “garbage.”

Several bystanders captured footage of Good's killing, which happened in a neighborhood south of downtown.

The recordings show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.

It is not clear from the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer, and there is no indication of whether the woman had interactions with agents earlier. After the shooting, the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb before crashing to a stop.

The federal agent who fatally shot Good is an Iraq War veteran who has served for nearly two decades in the Border Patrol and ICE, according to records obtained by AP.

Noem has not publicly named him, but a Homeland Security spokesperson said her description of his injuries last summer refers to an incident in Bloomington, Minnesota, in which court documents identify him as Jonathan Ross.

Ross got his arm stuck in the window of a vehicle whose driver was fleeing arrest on an immigration violation. Ross was dragged and fired his Taser. A jury found the driver guilty of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.

Attempts to reach Ross, 43, at phone numbers and email addresses associated with him were not successful.

Associated Press reporters Steve Karnowski and Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis; Ed White in Detroit; Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas; Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma; Michael Biesecker in Washington; Jim Mustian and Safiyah Riddle in New York; Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.