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A first plane carrying West African migrants expelled from the U.S. under President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown landed in Sierra Leone on Wednesday, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalist reportedly saw.
Twenty-five migrants from West African countries were on board, according to Sierra Leone’s foreign minister.
Police, medics, government officials and members of the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration were present at the international airport outside Freetown to receive the migrants.
Sierra Leone is the latest African country to accept migrants expelled from the U.S. in recent months under Trump’s immigration policy.
Foreign Minister Timothy Musa Kabba told AFP by telephone late Tuesday that Freetown had agreed to accept up to 300 people a year expelled by the U.S., but only from member states of the West African economic bloc ECOWAS.
“We are taking in these deported people because they are from west Africa, and some of them hold Sierra Leonean residence permits obtained many years ago,” Kabba said.
He said the migrants “have the right to stay in the country for 90 days and can then return to their country of origin.”
The U.S. is providing $1.5 million to support the program and “to cover the humanitarian and operational costs linked to this agreement,” according to a foreign ministry document consulted by AFP.
Sierra Leone follows several African countries that have accepted people deported from the U.S., including Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Ghana, Rwanda and South Sudan.
In return, Washington provides financial and logistical support.
Some countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, have accepted migrants from other continents, including Latin America.
Human Rights Watch urged African nations in September to reject such arrangements, saying the “opaque deals” were “part of a U.S. policy approach that violated international human rights law.”
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