Eswatini to Repatriate US Deportees After Rejecting Role as Dumping Ground

Addis Ababa, July 17, 2025 (ENA)—Eswatini announced that it will repatriate five migrants deported by the US, rejecting claims that their home countries refused to accept them.

The Kingdom of Eswatini has announced it will repatriate five foreign nationals who were deported there by the United States, a day after the Trump administration claimed the migrants’ home countries had refused to take them back.

The five deportees, from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen, and Cuba — were flown to Eswatini in what the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described as the first “third-country” deportation since a recent Supreme Court ruling upheld the controversial practice.

According to DHS, all five individuals had completed prison sentences in the United States for serious criminal offenses. The department said they were sent to Eswatini after their home governments allegedly declined to accept them.

“The flight included individuals whose own countries refused to take them back,” wrote Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary at DHS, in a post on X (formerly Twitter) Tuesday night.

However, Eswatini quickly rebuffed any implication that it would permanently host the deportees. In a firm statement released Wednesday, government spokeswoman Thabile Mdluli said the five men would not remain in Eswatini.

“The governments of Eswatini and the United States, together with the International Organization for Migration, will facilitate the transit of these inmates to their countries of origin,” Mdluli said.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), however, contradicted Eswatini’s statement, clarifying that it had no role in the migrants’ removal from the United States and had not been asked to assist with their repatriation.

The deportations come on the heels of a US Supreme Court ruling earlier this month that gave the Trump administration the green light to resume sending deportees to third countries — even those with no previous connection to the individuals being deported.

Immigration advocates have slammed the move as an example of “outsourcing responsibility” under the Trump administration’s hardline immigration stance.