Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, the US has deported more than 25 000 migrants. Some of them were sent to third countries with which they had no connection, thanks to secret agreements by Washington.
This is stated in an investigation by the Forbidden Stories journalistic network (which consists of 26 media organizations from 15 countries).
The White House has allocated $410 million for such deportations. Most of the deportees were sent by bus to Mexico — nearly 20 000 people. Others were flown by plane to 27 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Central Asia, and the Pacific.
The agreements were signed with at least 38 countries, nearly a third of which were African. Most of the agreements were concluded by the Office of Repatriation, a new division of the US State Department created in 2025.
The Washington Post, citing sources in the White House, wrote that deportations to third countries were used to expel migrants who were difficult to return to their homeland.
The investigation says that the US often uses visa restrictions to pressure African countries, which are forced to agree to accept deportees.
Journalists claim that the International Organization for Migration, a UN agency, is involved in the program. In 13 countries, its employees provide deportees with housing, food, and psychological assistance.
However, the organization clarified that it participates in such programs only when their assistance will improve the situation of the deportees.
Trumpʼs immigration policy
On the first day of his presidency, January 21, 2025, Trump signed an executive order prohibiting the issuance of American citizenship documents to children born in the United States to parents who are either illegally in the United States or in situations where the mother is temporarily in the United States, for example, on a visa, and the father is not a citizen.
And the next day, he signed an executive orderclosing the countryʼs southern border with Mexico to "illegal migrants" and ordering the deportation of those who entered the United States illegally from Mexico.
The United States subsequently suspended a number of programs that allowed immigrants to temporarily settle in the country. In addition to Ukraine, the programs offered temporary protection to immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela.
At the end of March 2025, Trump stripped 530 000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans of their legal status, which allowed them to legally reside in the United States. Already in November, the United States planned to deport dozens of Ukrainians. Among them were even those emigrants who left for America during the Soviet Union.
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