The Central African Republic has agreed to take in migrants from other countries expelled by the United States, two sources familiar with the matter said, the latest example of the Trump administration striking deals with African nations to speed up removals.
Washington has sent so-called third-country deportees to African countries including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Equatorial Guinea, under murky deals that Senate Democrats say have cost tens of millions of dollars.
In many cases, deportees had obtained legal protection from US immigration courts against deportation. But human rights groups say third-party agreements allow the United States to circumvent those protections.
The plan was discussed by the American delegation
Washington has defended the transfer as legal.
The agreement with the Central African Republic was discussed during a May 18 meeting in the capital Bangui, with the US delegation led by Christian Jové Ehrhardt, deputy assistant secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Office of Population, Refugees and Migration, a Central African government official said.
“The Central African Republic will certainly receive, within the framework of the agreement with the United States, the migrants deported by the American authorities,” said the official, who asked not to be named.
A diplomat living in the area, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, also said an agreement had been reached.
