Friday, August 22, 2025 - Uganda has entered an agreement with the United States to take in nationals from third countries who may not get asylum in the U.S. but are reluctant to return to their countries of origin, the foreign affairs ministry said on Thursday, August 21.
President Donald Trump aims to deport millions of immigrants
who entered the U.S. illegally, and his administration has sought to increase
removals to third countries, including by sending convicted criminals to South
Sudan and Eswatini.
"This is a temporary arrangement with conditions
including that individuals with criminal records and unaccompanied minors will
not be accepted," Vincent Bagiire Waiswa, the ministry's permanent
secretary, said in a statement.
Waiswa added that Uganda would prefer to receive people from
African nationalities under the agreement.
"The two parties are working out the detailed
modalities on how the agreement shall be implemented," he said.
On Wednesday, another Ugandan foreign
affairs official had denied a U.S. media report that the East African
country had agreed to take in people deported from the United States, saying it
lacked the facilities to accommodate them.
Uganda, a U.S. ally in East Africa, also hosts nearly two
million refugees and asylum-seekers, who mostly hail from countries in the
region such as Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Sudan.
In July, five immigrants from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen
and Cuba, who Washington said had been convicted of serious crimes, were flown
to Eswatini, where they are now in a high-security prison. The deportations are
being challenged by a group of Swazi and southern African NGOs, with
a high court hearing scheduled for Friday.
Also in July, eight men from various countries were deported
by the US to South Sudan, via Djibouti, where they were held for weeks in
a shipping container. Meanwhile, more than 250 Venezuelans
were repatriated to Venezuela after being sent to a notorious El
Salvador prison in March without due process.
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