The U.S. Is Paying Liberia to Take Deportees. Here's How It Works — and Why It Matters.
The Trump administration has begun flying deportees to Liberia under a third-country deportation program, with the United States agreeing to pay the Liberian government $5 million for the arrangement. The first flight carried 20 migrants to Liberia in August 2026; at least five of them refused to leave the plane after landing and were returned to the aircraft. New York Times
The flight didn't end in Liberia. According to tracking by Human Rights First's ICE Flight Monitor, the same aircraft continued on to transfer third-country nationals to Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon. The monitor identified multiple forced third-country transfers from the United States within a 24-hour window. Human Rights First New York Times
Liberia's government committed on August 18, 2026, to accepting up to 1,200 deportees from the United States within the following year. New York Times
The financial structure is worth pausing on. The $5 million payment to Liberia stands in contrast to a separate DHS initiative announced in May 2025: a voluntary self-deportation program through CBP Home that offers travel assistance and a stipend to individuals who choose to self-deport. DHS projected that program would reduce per-deportation costs by roughly 70 percent, even accounting for the stipend. DHS The Liberia arrangement, by contrast, involves a direct payment to a foreign government for receiving deportees — a structure that channels funds outward rather than encouraging people to leave on their own.
ICE's Air Operations Unit coordinates flights to countries on an as-needed basis for individuals subject to final orders of removal (a legal determination that a person must leave the United States). ICE The unit has previously carried out removals to Liberia, though under different circumstances. In June 2025, ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations Detroit removed Varfley Dolleh, a 56-year-old Liberian national with ties to a rebel group known for human rights violations. An earlier removal in June 2022 involved Eddie Yenner Murphy Karpoleh, a former member of Liberia's National Patriotic Front, flown from Saint Paul. ICE ICE Those prior cases involved Liberian nationals being sent back to their country of citizenship. The current program appears to involve third-country nationals — people sent to a country that is not their own — which raises distinct legal and diplomatic questions.
The onward transfers to Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon compound those questions. If the individuals sent onward from Liberia are not nationals of those countries, the transfers fall under the same third-country deportation framework rather than standard repatriation (the return of someone to their country of origin). Human Rights First's characterization of these movements as "forced" third-country transfers signals the organization's assessment that the individuals involved did not consent to relocation.
The broader context here is one of expanding infrastructure for removals to countries beyond deportees' nations of origin. The Liberia agreement, with its specific numerical commitment of 1,200 individuals and its attached financial compensation, is a bilateral arrangement formalized at scale. The multi-country routing of a single flight, with stops in Liberia, Equatorial Guinea, and Cameroon, suggests an operational model designed for efficiency across multiple destinations rather than case-by-case repatriation.
For practitioners in immigration enforcement, refugee protection, and diplomatic affairs, several elements warrant close attention. The payment structure creates a precedent for compensating receiving states, which could inform negotiations with other countries. The resistance on the first flight, where a quarter of the deportees refused to disembark, signals operational risks that may recur as the program scales toward the 1,200-person target. And the involvement of third-country onward transfers to additional states raises due-process concerns that advocacy organizations are already monitoring and documenting.
The 24-hour window during which Human Rights First tracked multiple forced transfers suggests the program is operating at a tempo that outpaces what single-flight monitoring can fully capture.
