A bombshell report released on Friday by the U.S Senate Foreign Relations Committee has revealed the staggering amount the administration of U.S President Donald Trump spent on each deportation to third-party countries.
According to the report, the Trump administration spent $133,333 on average for deportation to third-party countries with which they often have no prior connection.
The 30-page report, spearheaded by Ranking Member Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), details how the U.S government has funneled at least $40 million into agreements with foreign nations.
These “Safe Third Country” deals involve paying sovereign governments lump-sum grants to accept migrants that the U.S cannot or will not return to their countries of origin.
While the average amount Trump spent on deportation to third-party countries stood at $133,333, the costs in specific cases were exponentially higher.
The report revealed that the U.S reportedly entered a deal with Rwanda where the Trump administration paid $7.5 million, plus over $600,000 in flight costs, to relocate only seven individuals. This brings the cost for those specific removals to more than $1.1 million per person.
It was also gathered that the bulk of the money went to five countries — Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, El Salvador, Palau and Eswatini — which collectively received $32 million.
The funds were transferred directly to foreign governments rather than through third-party implementing partners, and the State Department is not using outside auditors to track how the money is spent, the report’s authors said.
Equatorial Guinea, which ranks 172 out of 182 countries in Transparency International’s corruption index, received $7.5 million — more than the total American foreign assistance provided to the country over the previous eight years combined, according to the report.
The report detailed specific examples in which migrants were sent to countries far from their home nation.
A Mexican national, for instance, was flown more than 8,000 miles to South Sudan at an estimated cost of $91,000 per person, including housing at a United States military base in Djibouti along the way. He was sent back to Mexico weeks later.
And a Jamaican national was sent to Eswatini at an estimated cost of more than $181,000, despite having deportation orders to Jamaica. Weeks later, the US again paid to fly him home.
The Democrats on the Foreign Relations panel, led by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, criticize the practice of third country deportations as “costly, wasteful and poorly monitored” in the report and call for “serious scrutiny of a policy that now operates largely in the dark.”
The Democrats also largely criticize the policy for being wasteful and ineffective. It details several instances of migrants being deported to a third country, only for the U.S. to pay later for another flight to return the migrant to their home country.
“In many cases, migrants could have been returned directly to their countries of origin, avoiding unnecessary flights and additional costs,” said Shaheen in a statement also signed by Democratic Sens. Chris Coons, Tammy Duckworth, Tim Kaine, Jack Rosen and Chris Van Hollen.
The emergence of this report comes after the State Department, which oversees the negotiations to implement the programs, stood behind the practice of third-country deportations and defended it as a part of Trump’s campaign to end illegal immigration.
“We’ve arrested people who are members of gangs, and we’ve deported them. We don’t want gang members in our country,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded when asked about some of the third-country deportations at a Senate hearing last month.
