Uganda says it reached deal with U.S. to take ‘third country’ deportees

Uganda said it agreed on a “temporary” deal to accept people deported from the United States, becoming the latest country to take in migrants in what the U.S. has called “third country” deportations.

The agreement between Uganda and the U.S. will apply to “Third Country Nationals who may not be granted asylum in the United States but are reluctant to or may have concerns about returning to their countries of origin,” according to a statement from the Ugandan Foreign Ministry’s permanent secretary, Bagiire Vincent Waiswa, that was posted on X. Waiswa did not immediately respond to a request for more details.

Uganda joins a growing list of countries that have agreed to take in migrants deported from the United States. Last month, the U.S. deported five men to Eswatini and eight men to South Sudan.

Uganda’s Foreign Ministry said it will accept deportees, providing they do not have criminal records or are not unaccompanied minors. It added that Uganda prefers to take in people from African countries.

It was not immediately clear how many deportees the East African county would take or when the deal would be implemented. Details of the agreement are being worked out, the statement said, but it added that the deal had been “concluded.”

In response to questions from the Washington Post, the White House did not say whether a deal was in place or provide any further details.

The State Department declined to comment on private negotiations, but said in a statement it 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.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not reply to requests for comment.

Henry Oryem Okello, a senior Ugandan Foreign Ministry official, told the Associated Press that the government remains in discussions with U.S. officials about visas, tariffs, sanctions and other related issues.

Oryem Okello, who is state minister for international relations, also questioned why Uganda would take people rejected by their own countries. “We are talking about … people who are unwanted in their own countries. How can we integrate them into local communities in Uganda?” he said.

The Trump administration has also deported hundreds of migrants from nations as far-flung as China and Vietnam to Panama and Costa Rica. Its policy of deporting people to countries where they are not citizens is a sharp change for the U.S., where such expulsions have been rare. However, other countries such as Britain and Australia have tried to carry out such a policy.