PREVIEW
A $5m State Department grant, quietly approved last December, has turned west Africa's smallest post-war economy into a pressure valve for US immigration policy
Liberia has become the highest-profile beneficiary yet of the Trump administration's push to outsource deportation to African states. Internal State Department documents seen by the New York Times show the US$5 million payment – nominally earmarked for shelter, food and job training for deportees – was signed off in December, months before this week's arrival of the first 20 of an eventual 1,200 people with no ties to the country.
Deportees will include African nationals as well as nationals from North America, South America and the Caribbean, according to Liberian Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah. ‘The government wants to emphasise that those being brought to Liberia are being received as guests,’ said Piah.
The Trump administration has followed the European Union in putting migration control, and increasing returns, in particular, at the heart of its Africa policy priorities. Ghana, Rwanda, Eswatini, Congo-Kinshasa, South Sudan and Sierra Leone are among a group of countries which have agreed to take unspecified numbers of deportees who the US cannot legally return to their home countries (AC Vol 66 No 15, Trump ‘cash for migrants’ playbook hits roadblocks in Africa & Dispatches, 1/9/25, Rwanda takes first US deportees, but terms of deal remain secret).
But the deal with Liberia is the most ambitious so far in terms of numbers and in specifying payment terms. The other African deportee deals with the US have essentially been favours in exchange for promises of US investment and diplomatic support.
A group of EU countries, meanwhile, have opened talks with Uganda and Rwanda on potentially setting up ‘return hubs’ for failed asylum seekers in the East African countries, part of the EU’s plan to outsource border control (AC Vol 67 No 14, The right not to return). Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Greece, which are holding talks with Ugandan officials, plan to meet in Copenhagen in early September to assess progress.
The ‘return hubs’ would be financed by EU states, and it appears that Liberia is being paid $5m by Washington to take the 1,200, according to documents cited by the New York Times.
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