KAMPALA, Uganda — Internal government documents obtained by CBS News show that the Trump administration has expanded its global campaign to enlist countries in its crackdown on illegal immigration by persuading them to accept the deportation of migrants who are not their own citizens.
The documents indicate that Uganda in East Africa recently agreed to accept deportees from the U.S. who do not have criminal histories and hail from other African countries. It remains unclear how many deportees Uganda will ultimately accept under this arrangement.
The government of Honduras has also agreed to receive deportees from other Spanish-speaking Latin American countries, including families with children. While Honduras has agreed to a relatively small number of deportations—just several hundred over two years—the documents suggest that it could agree to accept more in the future.
Both of these agreements are based on a “safe third country” provision of U.S. immigration law. This provision allows officials to reroute asylum-seekers to countries that are not their own, provided the U.S. government determines that those nations can fairly hear their claims for humanitarian protection.
The two bilateral deals are part of a larger diplomatic effort by the Trump administration to establish deportation arrangements with nations across several continents, including some with problematic human rights records.
The administration has argued that these agreements are crucial to its mass deportation campaign, particularly for migrants who cannot be easily deported to their home countries due to strained diplomatic relations or other reasons.
At least a dozen countries have already accepted or agreed to accept deportees from other nations since the second Trump administration took office, and U.S. officials have been aggressively courting other governments. Internal documents show that the Trump administration has also asked countries like Ecuador and Spain to receive these so-called third-country deportees. Representatives for the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment on CBS News’ reporting.
A senior State Department official said, “We don’t comment on the content of private diplomatic negotiations, but the State Department is doing everything possible to support the President’s policy of keeping Americans safe by removing illegal aliens who have no right to be in the United States.”
Earlier this summer, the Supreme Court gave the Trump administration a legal green light to deport migrants to third countries with minimal notice and due process. This decision has allowed the administration to continue expanding a practice it has relied on since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s second term.
In February, the administration convinced Costa Rica and Panama to take in several hundred African and Asian migrants who had claimed asylum along the U.S.-Mexico border.
In March, the U.S. flew more than 200 Venezuelans accused of gang membership to El Salvador, where they were held incommunicado for months in a notorious prison until they were returned to Venezuela last month as part of a prisoner swap.
The administration has also sent immigrants convicted of violent crimes from countries like Cuba, Jamaica, Mexico, Laos, Myanmar, and Yemen to violence-torn South Sudan and the tiny southern African kingdom of Eswatini. Guatemala, Kosovo, and Rwanda have also announced that they will receive deportees from the U.S. who are from other nations.
Last week, the State Department announced that the U.S. had signed a “safe third country” asylum agreement with Paraguay. An arrangement with Mexico, which predates Mr. Trump’s second term, also allows for the return of some Latin American migrants who illegally crossed the U.S. southern border.
Human rights advocates have strongly condemned the Trump administration’s efforts, expressing concerns that migrants could be sent to countries where they risk being harmed or returned to the very places they originally fled. Some of the countries that have signed deportation agreements have been plagued by reports of human rights abuses.
For instance, a State Department report released last week described “negative developments in the human rights situation in Uganda,” citing unlawful killings, “arbitrary” arrests, disappearances, and a lack of government action to curb human rights abuses.
The report did, however, note that Uganda has also worked with United Nations officials to provide humanitarian protection to refugees.
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Doris Meissner, who led the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service under the Clinton administration, noted that the U.S. government has long faced difficulties deporting some migrants due to diplomatic constraints.
However, she pointed out that efforts to deport them to third countries were typically undertaken only in “exceptional” cases. Meissner, now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, suggested that the Trump administration may be using different forms of leverage—such as threats of visa sanctions and funding commitments—to persuade as many countries as possible to accept these deportees.
While these deportations to third countries remain relatively limited in scale, Meissner believes a key driver behind the Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts is a desire to send a message of deterrence.
The policy highlights the possibility that individuals in the U.S. illegally could be sent to distant countries where they have no ties.
“The broader reason beyond that is fear and intimidation and ultimately, incentivizing self deportation,” she said.
