MONROVIA (Reuters) -The Trump administration this week pressed five African presidents to take in migrants from other countries when they are deported by the U.S., two officials familiar with the discussions told Reuters on Thursday.
The plan was presented to the presidents of Liberia, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Gabon during their visit to the White House on Wednesday, according to a U.S. and a Liberian official who both asked not to be named.
The White House and official spokespeople for the five nations did not respond to requests for comment. It was not immediately clear if any of the countries had agreed to the plan.
Since returning to office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has been pressing to speed up deportations, including by sending migrants to third countries when there are problems or delays over sending them to their home nations.
On Saturday, eight migrants – from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Sudan and Vietnam, according to their lawyers – arrived in South Sudan’s capital after they lost a legal battle to halt their transfer.
Wednesday’s meeting at the White House had been organised partly to talk about the deportation plan, the U.S. official said. Liberia’s government was “preparing to accommodate” an effort to house migrants in its capital Monrovia, the U.S. official added.
The Liberian official confirmed that the deportation plan was a focus of Wednesday’s meeting, but did not say whether Liberian President Joseph Boakai had agreed to it.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that an internal State Department document sent to the African governments before the meeting called on them to agree to the “dignified, safe, and timely transfer from the United States” of third country nationals.
Under the proposed plan, the governments would agree not to send the migrants “to their home country or country of former habitual residence until a final decision has been made” on their U.S. asylum bids, according to the report.
Reuters has not seen a copy of the State Department document and could not confirm its contents.
In public comments at Wednesday’s meeting, Trump told the five leaders he was shifting the U.S. approach to Africa from aid to trade, and that the United States was a better partner than China.
“I hope we can bring down the high rates of people overstaying visas, and also make progress on the safe third country agreements,” Trump added.
He was accompanied by Massad Boulos, senior adviser for Africa, and aide Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner.
(Reporting by Alphonso Toweh and by Robbie Corey-Boulet in Dakar; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
