Uganda has denied reports that it struck a deal with the United States to take in migrants deported from American soil.
The denial came Wednesday after CBS News reported that both Uganda and Honduras had reached agreements with Washington as part of its broader effort to relocate deportees to third countries.
According to CBS, Honduras was expected to receive hundreds of deported migrants from Spanish-speaking nations, while Uganda allegedly agreed to accept an unspecified number of African and Asian migrants who had sought asylum at the US-Mexico border.
The report claimed Uganda’s participation was conditional on the deportees having no criminal records.
The reported deals were linked to former President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, which sought to deport millions of people living in the United States illegally.
Ugandan officials, however, pushed back against the claim. “To the best of my knowledge, we have not reached such an agreement,” State Minister for Foreign Affairs Okello Oryem told Reuters in a text message.
“We do not have the facilities and infrastructure to accommodate such illegal immigrants in Uganda.”
CBS News cited confidential US government documents that suggested the Trump administration had been expanding its deportation strategy, with plans to send asylum seekers and convicted criminals to third countries such as South Sudan and Eswatini.
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This is not the first time an African country has been linked to Washington’s deportation campaign.
In July, Eswatini rejected claims from the United States that it had agreed to host deported ex-convicts who could not be returned to their home countries.
The kingdom clarified that it was working with Washington and the International Organization for Migration to ensure deportees were eventually repatriated.
Earlier reports had indicated that a US deportation flight carrying migrants from Yemen, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, and Jamaica landed in Eswatini.
That transfer formed part of a policy reinstated by the US Department of Homeland Security, which allows deportees to be sent to third-party nations even when they are not citizens of those countries.
The policy gained momentum in June when the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Trump administration, granting wider authority to deport migrants without allowing them to argue that they face persecution or danger at home.
The decision was hailed by the United States as a major victory in its battle against illegal immigration, according to Business Insider.
Critics, however, argue the policy breaches international asylum laws and places vulnerable migrants at risk by relocating them to nations where they have no ties or support networks.
The mounting pressure on African states to accept deportees has raised concerns over sovereignty, international law, and the continent’s capacity to manage inflows of people with little or no connection to the countries they are sent to.
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Image Credit: HICI News Agency
