Why Is the US Sending Deportees to Liberia?
On August 20, 2026, the United States sent its first group of 20 deportees to Liberia. It was the first transfer under a new agreement between the two countries that says Liberia will accept up to 1,200 deportees over the next 12 months. Some of these deportees are not even Liberian citizens. Venezuelans and Cubans are among those being sent. Reuters
Five of the 20 people who arrived on that first flight refused to get off the plane, according to The New York Times. We do not know what happened after that, because no public reporting has explained how the situation was resolved. The New York Times
Normally, when a country deports someone, it sends that person back to their home country. This deal is different. It uses something called "third-country removal," which means the US sends people to a country that is not their own. Think of it like a detour: instead of going home, the person is dropped off in a third country that has agreed to take them. Under this deal, that third country is Liberia, and some of the people sent there have no connection to Liberia at all. That raises questions about whether those people will have access to help from their own governments, whether they were treated fairly, and what Liberia owes people it did not ask for but is now receiving. The Guardian
Since the start of President Trump's second term, an estimated 23,000 people have been sent to third countries under this kind of arrangement, according to The American Prospect. The Liberia deal is just the latest in a growing list of such agreements. The American Prospect
There is a similar deal with Equatorial Guinea, reported by the Associated Press in March 2026. Deportees sent there under that agreement have been stuck in the country, and we do not know much about their conditions. The AP called that deal secretive, and no one has publicly accounted for what happened to the people sent there. Associated Press
The broader context here is that the US has been deliberately building a network of countries willing to accept deportees whose home countries either will not take them back or are too difficult to deal with directly. The 23,000 third-country removals since the start of Trump's second term, as estimated by The American Prospect, suggest this is no longer a one-off solution. It has become a planned system involving multiple countries.
Liberia's role in this deal carries special weight because of history. The country was founded in the nineteenth century by freed American slaves, and its relationship with the US runs deep. For Liberia's government, accepting a deal of this size likely had to do with US aid, goodwill, and the pressure Washington can place on a small West African economy. Because the agreement includes people who are not Liberian, Liberia is now serving as a stopping point or final destination for deportees the US cannot or will not send home. That is something Liberia has never done before in its immigration policy.
The Equatorial Guinea situation raises hard questions about the Liberia deal. If deportees sent to Equatorial Guinea ended up in legal limbo, what will happen to the 1,200 people headed to Liberia? Will they be able to settle there, get legal status, or eventually be sent to their home countries? Neither the Liberian government nor US authorities have explained these details. The fact that five people refused to leave the plane on the very first flight shows the coercive side of this process, regardless of whatever rights these deportees may technically have.
The inclusion of Venezuelans and Cubans among the deportees tells us something about why the US wants this deal. Both Venezuela and Cuba have hostile relations with the US, and sending people back to those countries directly has been politically and diplomatically difficult. By sending them to Liberia instead, the US avoids having to negotiate directly with Caracas or Havana. Whether Liberia agreed to take people from those specific countries, or simply accepted a blanket deal without reviewing each case, is not publicly known.
Looking ahead, the compliance rate will matter. If many of the 1,200 deportees resist or refuse to cooperate when they arrive, as five of the first twenty did, the costs of this deal will grow with every flight. Liberia will have to handle people who do not want to be there, and the US will have to answer for whether this arrangement can actually work when the people being sent have no ties to Liberia and no desire to stay.
