U.S. spent $40 million on roughly 300 deportations to third nations, Democratic report finds

A Democratic report reveals the U.S. spent $40 million on third-country deportations, criticizing the policy as costly and poorly monitored.

The Trump administration spent at least $40 million to deport roughly 300 migrants to countries other than their own as immigration officials expanded the practice over the last year to carry out President Donald Trump's goals of quickly removing immigrants from the U.S., according to a report compiled by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Democrats on the Foreign Relations panel, led by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, criticised the practice of third-country deportations as “costly, wasteful and poorly monitored” in the report and called for “serious scrutiny of a policy that now operates largely in the dark.” The State Department, which oversees the negotiations to implement the programs, has stood behind the practice of third country deportations and defended it as a part of Mr. Trump's campaign to end illegal immigration.

“We've arrested people that 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.

The report, which is the first congressional review of the agreements, found lump sum payments ranging between $4.7 million and $7.5 million to five countries — Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, El Salvador, Eswatini, and Palau — to deport migrants to those nations.

El Salvador has received about 250 Venezuelan nationals in March last year, while the other nations received far fewer deportees, ranging from 29 sent to Equatorial Guinea to none sent to Palau so far, according to the report.

The nations examined in the report are just a fraction of the Trump administration's overall work to deport migrants to third countries. According to internal administration documents reviewed by The Associated Press, there are 47 third-country agreements at various stages of negotiation. Of those, 15 have been concluded and 10 are at or near conclusion.