Monday, Sept. 21, 2026
The Washington Post
The Trump administration has authorized or pledged at least $410 million to facilitate agreements with 31 countries, mostly in Africa and Latin America, as of the end of June, according to internal government records reviewed by The Washington Post. The documents, which have not been previously reported, provide the most comprehensive picture to date of the Trump administration’s fast-growing third-country network.
Under the arrangements, the U.S. has expelled migrants to countries across the globe where they have no previous connection. Early deals included flights to Costa Rica carrying migrants from China, Russia, Iran and Afghanistan and a flight to the tiny African kingdom of Eswatini with migrants from Vietnam, Laos, Cuba and Jamaica.
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The Washington Post
A bearded young man with an arm covered in tattoos, Saleh Fard is among the 299 migrants whom the United States deported to Panama just weeks after President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 2025. Like Saleh Fard, none of them had any prior connection to this small country at the southern end of Central America.
Instead, they became subjects of a new strategy for Trump’s second-term immigration policy: As part of deals brokered by the State Department using financial incentives and political pressure, more than 25,000 people have been removed from the U.S. and shipped not back to their home nations, but to “third countries.”
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Forbidden Stories
Iranians in Panama, Laotians in Eswatini, Venezuelans in Liberia. Since President Donald Trump took office in 2025, his administration has signed bilateral agreements with 35 countries to deport to them people who aren’t originally from there. Some 25,000 people have since been removed to countries they have no ties to. But the mechanics of third country removals are couched in layers of administrative, diplomatic, and financial secrecy.
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Forbidden Stories
On Feb. 17, 2026, four Cameroonian journalists were detained in Yaoundé for entering a center secretly holding deportees from the United States. After a six-month investigation, Forbidden Stories is publishing the testimonies of two women the journalists interviewed before being arrested, along with details of a secret immigration agreement between Washington and Yaoundé.
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The Deportation Project
Between 2025 and August 2026, the Trump administration deported over 25,000 people to countries other than their country of origin. Very few of these removals were publicly announced by the US. The Deportation Project tracked them, and depicted them in this map.
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