The government of Eswatini announced Thursday it received four additional "third country" deportees from the United States, bringing the total to 19 individuals sent to the small African nation under a multimillion-dollar deal with the Trump administration. The latest deportees included two from Somalia, one from Sudan, and one from Tanzania, all sent to Eswatini despite not being nationals of that country.
This arrangement represents part of the Trump administration's expanded immigration enforcement strategy, where deportees are sent to third countries that agree to accept them rather than their countries of origin. The practice has emerged as the administration seeks alternatives when home countries refuse to accept deportees or lack diplomatic relations with the United States.
Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, is a landlocked kingdom of approximately 1.2 million people in southern Africa. The specific financial terms of the deportation agreement have not been publicly disclosed, though officials describe it as a multimillion-dollar arrangement that provides economic incentives for accepting foreign nationals.
The policy raises questions about the long-term integration of deportees who have no cultural or linguistic ties to Eswatini and may lack legal status in their new location. Human rights advocates have criticized such third-country deportation agreements as potentially violating international law regarding the right to return to one's home country.