Mon | Oct 27, 2025

Rwanda accepts up to 250 deportees from US under Trump’s third-country plan

Published:Tuesday | August 5, 2025 | 10:41 AM
President Donald Trump listens as Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe speaks during a event with Congo’s Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, June 27, 2025, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, as Vice President JD Van
(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta), File)
President Donald Trump listens as Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe speaks during a event with Congo’s Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, June 27, 2025, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, as Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, watch.

KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) — Rwanda agreed to accept up to 250 deportees from the United States under the Trump administration’s expanding third-country deportation programme, its government said Tuesday.

The US is seeking more deals with African countries to take deportees under President Donald Trump’s plans to expel people who he says entered the US illegally and are “the worst of the worst.”

Rwanda government spokesperson Yolande Makolo confirmed the details in an email to The Associated Press. She didn’t immediately give a timeline for the deportations.

The US has already sent 13 immigrants to two other African nations, South Sudan and Eswatini.

It has also deported hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama.

The Trump administration described the eight men sent to South Sudan and the five men sent to Eswatini last month as dangerous criminals who had been convicted of crimes in the US.

Both those countries have declined to give details of their deals with the US.

Rwanda, an East African nation of around 15 million people, struck a deal in 2022 with the UK to accept migrants who had arrived in the UK to seek asylum.

Under the proposed deal, their claims would have been processed in Rwanda and, if successful, they would have stayed there.

Rwanda said in May it was in negotiations with the US over a deportation agreement.

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