Trump administration in talks with Rwanda to take deportees from U.S.
Source: CBS News
Updated on: May 2, 2025 / 8:14 PM EDT
Washington — Rwanda's government and the Trump administration are discussing details about a potential agreement for Kigali to accept deportees from the U.S., including Africans and other non-Rwandan nationals, CBS News has learned. Decisions on potential financial compensation for taking in the deportees and other details would be discussed within the next two weeks, according to a Rwandan official. A U.S. official and a Rwandan official both confirmed the active talks about sending third-country deportees from U.S. soil to the east African nation.
During a televised Cabinet meeting event earlier this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was actively searching for other countries to take in migrants expelled from the U.S. "We are working with other countries to say, 'We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings,'" he said while sitting alongside President Trump. Rubio added that the "further away from America, the better."
The Rwanda arrangements were first reported by the Washington Post, which also cited work by an independent journalist who had uncovered the recent deportation from the U.S. of an Iraqi national to Rwanda. A Rwandan official told CBS News that the Trump administration had indeed carried out that deportation, but did not share additional information about the man.
The Rwandan official also told CBS News that Kigali had unique past experience with handling deportees, and cited a past deal with the United Kingdom. The U.K.'s deportation of asylum seekers in 2024 sparked legal and political controversy for the then conservative U.K. government. Immediately after taking office last year, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the policy was "dead and buried."
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-in-talks-with-rwanda-to-take-deportees-from-u-s/
The courts already ruled that they can't deport to "3rd party" countries not the origin country of the migrant, without due process - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143443369
Rwanda is known to have committed a genocide in the '90s during their civil war between the Hutus and Tutsis.
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