America’s most unwanted and the urgent cable that reveals where Trump wants them to go

United States diplomats in several overseas missions received an urgent cable from Washington this spring. They were told to ask nine countries in Africa and Central Asia to take in people expelled from the US, who were not citizens of those nations and included criminals.

It was a glimpse into US President Donald Trump’s wide campaign to get countries to accept America’s deportees. American diplomats are reaching out to countries in every corner of the globe, even some shattered by war or known for human rights abuses.

US officials have approached Angola, Mongolia and embattled Ukraine. Kosovo has agreed to accept up to 50 people. Costa Rica is holding dozens.

US diplomats even approached Ukraine, which has been fighting off a full-scale Russian invasion since 2022.Credit: AP

The US government paid Rwanda $US100,000 ($152,550) to take an Iraqi man and is discussing sending more deportees there. Peru has said no so far, despite having been pressed repeatedly.

“The United States is eager to partner with countries willing to accept” people, the cable, dated March 12, said. It listed Tunisia, Togo and Turkmenistan among the possible destinations.

And the administration recently planned to fly citizens of mainly Asian and Latin American countries to war-torn Libya and South Sudan, until a US district court blocked those expulsions. Libya was one of the nine countries mentioned in the cable, which has not been reported previously.

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the Trump administration has the right to expel people to countries other than their own, possibly paving the way for the deportation flight to South Sudan and similar moves across the globe.

“Fire up the deportation planes,” Homeland Security Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin wrote on social media.

For years, both Republican and Democratic administrations have asked countries to take back some of their own citizens. Trump is doing the same, but he is also trying to set up a network of nations that accept people from anywhere in the world and put them in prisons, camps or other facilities. In some cases, the foreign governments could allow the people to apply for asylum or try to send them back to their countries of origin.

The Trump administration has spoken to at least 29 nations in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia, according to a review by The New York Times of US government documents, including previously undisclosed diplomatic cables, and interviews with officials.

Beyond that, the US State Department has asked diplomats overseas to approach at least another 29 countries, most of them in Africa, for a total of at least 58. Seven have agreed to the administration’s request, and the other conversations are ongoing.

Many of the 58 nations are subject to a new full or partial travel ban to the United States by the Trump administration or are being considered for the ban. A State Department cable dated June 14 instructed diplomats to tell the countries being considered, most of which are in Africa, that they might be able to stay off the list if they agreed to take deportees who are not their citizens.

The 36 nations being considered could also be asked to serve as a “safe third country” accepting migrants who applied for asylum in the United States.

The global dealmaking efforts show the extreme measures Trump is willing to take to fulfil his aspirations for mass deportations, even if it means flying immigrants into danger or uncertainty.

Some countries are asking for payments or favours in return. Others have told diplomats they are uncomfortable accepting immigrants who have no connection to their countries or fear that there would be a domestic backlash if they agreed to take some.

The US government paid Rwanda $US100,000 ($152,550) to take an Iraqi man and is discussing sending more deportees there.Credit: Bloomberg

In some cases, the Trump administration has been willing to pay. The US government gave El Salvador about $US5 million after the country put more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants the administration accused of being gang members into a maximum-security prison.

In recent years, Venezuela, like some other countries, refused to accept regular deportation flights from the United States, and so the new Trump administration looked for nations willing to take expelled Venezuelans. After pressure from the administration, the Venezuelan government agreed in March to receive flights but has accepted only a trickle.

‘The farther away from America, the better’

Trump and his aides have cast the campaign as an effort to remove criminals or anti-American actors and stem an “invasion”. But they have not presented evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the vast majority of people detained for deportation.

At a cabinet meeting, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with passion about the process: “We are working with other countries to say, ‘We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries, and will you do that as a favour to us?’ And the farther away from America, the better, so they can’t come back across the border.”

The State Department said in a statement that “several” countries had agreed to accept people who were not their citizens, adding that it did not discuss details of diplomatic talks.

Most of the foreign governments mentioned in cables detailing exchanges did not return emails seeking comment when contacted by the Times. However, a handful issued statements: Kosovo confirmed its agreement, while Angola said it would not take anyone.

Critics of the deportations and lawyers say court hearings are needed to determine whether the law allows for the expulsion of each individual. And they argue the administration is ignoring the potential for human rights abuses in some of the countries willing to play host.

That appears to be the point. Administration officials say they are trying to send a message to those in the United States illegally that the immigrants could end up in brutal conditions in a faraway land if they don’t leave voluntarily.

Some aspects of the diplomacy have been reported. But recent interviews and official documents dated between January and June obtained by the Times reveal new details and the vast scope of the efforts.

Other administrations have deported migrants to far-flung nations, but only rarely. By contrast, the Trump administration has adopted a broad policy of trying to expel people to countries that are not their homeland, a move former diplomats describe as unprecedented.

“They’re succeeding in terrorising people,” said Eric Rubin, a retired career diplomat who was US ambassador to Bulgaria in the Obama administration and the first Trump presidency. “Most of the people we’re talking about have not committed any crime.”

Family members of the deportees, including those who have been convicted of crimes and served prison sentences, say such expulsions are unjust.

“They shipped him off in the middle of the night and tried to disappear him into a third country that’s in the middle of a freaking civil war,” said Ngoc Phan, wife of Tuan Thanh Phan, a Vietnam-born resident of Washington state who was on the deportation plane destined for South Sudan. The flight was routed to a US military base in Djibouti as a court case over the deportation of Phan and seven other men plays out.

South Sudan was so dangerous that the US embassy there had ordered family members of diplomats and some employees to leave the country and was asking for a Marine unit deployed there to stay longer, a cable said.

Detained in Latin America

After Trump took office on January 20, he and Rubio immediately focused on carrying out mass deportations.

The effort has widened with each passing month.

The US government gave El Salvador about $US5 million after the country put more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants the administration accused of being gang members into a maximum-security prison. US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem toured the prison in March.Credit: Getty Images

US diplomats in Washington and in embassies and consulates around the world have been telling their foreign counterparts that governments willing to accept expelled “third-country nationals” will win favour with the Trump administration, according to US officials with knowledge of the talks. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

The diplomats have had some success, notably with countries in Latin America.

In one of the most striking examples, Panama took about 300 deportees from Africa, Central Asia and elsewhere in February. They were first held in a hotel. Those who refused to board deportation flights to their home countries were then taken to a jungle camp. They were released after lawyers sued Panama’s government.

That same month, Costa Rica took 200 deportees, including citizens of China, India and Nepal, as well as a Yemeni family of three, according to State Department cables. By this week, 107 had returned to their countries of origin.

For deportees facing threats at home, Costa Rican diplomats have sought support from the United States to integrate the citizens into their society, arguing this would increase the country’s willingness to accept future deportees, one cable said.

In early April, the Trump administration deported a group of Mexican immigrants to Guatemala. But officials there said they were not expecting the arrivals and quickly arranged to have the group sent to Mexico.

US officials maintained that both countries were aware of the flight and that the deportation was a form of deterrence.

“If you enter unlawfully, you will be removed – and in a way that makes it far more difficult to try again,” McLaughlin said.

Guatemala’s Foreign Minister, Carlos Ramiro Martínez, told the Times this month that his country would accept deportees who are citizens of other Central American nations but would move quickly to send them home overland.

Next door, Honduras is allowing the United States to send Venezuelan immigrants to a military base there to put them on separate flights to Venezuela.

‘They shipped him off in the middle of the night and tried to disappear him into a third country that’s in the middle of a freaking civil war.’

Ngoc Phan, wife of Tuan Thanh Phan, a Vietnam-born resident of Washington state who was on a deportation plane destined for South Sudan

Peruvian officials told US diplomats in a meeting on January 28 that taking non-citizens was a “sensitive” issue for their government, a State Department cable that month said. They noted that nearly 2 million Venezuelans were already in Peru and that many Peruvians blamed rising crime on migrants.

Peru’s Foreign Minister, Elmer Schialer, reiterated this message on June 16 in a meeting in which a US diplomat again asked Peru to take non-citizens, according to a new cable. But Schialer said his country would consider the option since it was important for “friends to help friends”.

Flights to Asia, Africa and Europe

The Trump administration has also turned to nations further afield to take in immigrants.

US diplomats even approached Ukraine, which has been fighting off a full-scale Russian invasion since 2022. A Ukrainian official told an American counterpart that the government would consider Washington’s request, a cable said.

Ukrainian leaders are trying to work with Trump to negotiate a deal to end the war.

Moldova, which borders Ukraine, is “willing to conditionally accept” 100 deportees from other nations, according to a memo by the US Department of Homeland Security in late March.

US diplomats have approached repressive Cambodia, in South-East Asia, and they also consider Uzbekistan, in Central Asia, a potential candidate. In May, Uzbekistan chartered a flight from New York to its capital, Tashkent, that transported 92 Uzbeks as well as 19 people originally from Kazakhstan and 20 from the Kyrgyz Republic, a State Department cable said.

Uzbekistan told the United States, however, that it did not want to become a regional hub for non-Uzbek deportees, the cable said.

Likewise, a Georgian diplomat did not offer a “substantive response” on a proposal to accept non-citizens but expressed “continued openness to co-operation”, another cable said.

And in March, American diplomats began pressing officials in Kosovo. They held six meetings over three months, then set a deadline of May 8 for an answer.

Kosovar officials said on May 12 that they would take up to 50 people but told the Americans they had “not come easily” to the decision, given government difficulties and the “potential political fallout”, a US cable said. The officials said they preferred women and children.

And they suggested Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008, needed something in return. The officials said they wanted the United States to continue to lobby other nations to recognise Kosovo as a sovereign state, according to a diplomatic note obtained by the Times.

Similar conversations have taken place across Africa as well.

In late March, a US diplomat met government officials in the tiny kingdom of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, to push it to take expelled citizens of other nations, the DHS memo said.

But since October, the country has been dealing with an influx of 1100 refugees and asylum-seekers from Mozambique, a US State Department cable said. That raises questions about whether Eswatini has the resources to take people from the United States. And a recent State Department human rights report listed many abuses in the country, including extrajudicial killings and torture.

The day after the March meeting in Eswatini, officials from the Homeland Security and State Departments reported they were nearing a deal with Angola, according to the Homeland Security memo.

The State Department cable dated March 12 lists Angola as one of nine target nations across Africa and Asia. The others were Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Rwanda, Togo, Mauritania, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The cable said these were potential “safe” nations where people could apply for asylum, even though Libya is racked by civil conflict and authoritarian Turkmenistan has an abysmal human rights record, according to State Department reports.

Rwanda appears eager. After the Trump administration paid the country $US100,000 in April to accept an Iraqi citizen, the Rwandan government agreed to take 10 more deportees, a US cable said. The episode with the Iraqi man “proved the concept for a new removal program”, the cable said. But the Trump administration is trying to negotiate a better deal, according to a US official familiar with the matter.

By contrast, a cable this month said Burkina Faso could not take non-citizens. US diplomats had also asked both Ethiopia and São Tomé and Príncipe, a tiny African island nation, to take non-citizens, two other cables said.

Mark Hetfield, president of HIAS, a refugee resettlement agency, said the hundreds of expulsions so far from the United States were “another nail in the coffin of America’s role as a defender of human rights”.

“Imagine getting deported to a country where you have no family ties, where you don’t know the language or the culture, to which you have never even been, and with an atrocious human rights record,” Hetfield said. “Imagine that this happens when you may not be able to access a lawyer to represent you prior to being deported to such a place. This is what the Trump administration is pursuing.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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