Uganda agrees deal with US to take in deported asylum seekers

A Ugandan authoritative said the state would similar to person radical from African nationalities nether the agreement.

Uganda has agreed to instrumentality successful nationals from 3rd countries who whitethorn not get asylum successful the United States but bash not privation to instrumentality to their countries of origin, Kampala’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

The ministry said connected Thursday that the statement is based connected the conditions that those seeking asylum bash not person transgression records and that they are not unaccompanied minors, adding that details of the woody are inactive being worked out.

US President Donald Trump aims to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, with his medication seeking to summation removals to 3rd countries, including by sending convicted criminals to South Sudan and the confederate African kingdom of Eswatini.

At astir 1.7 million, Uganda already hosts the largest exile colonisation successful Africa, according to the United Nations, and is the latest East African state to denote specified a woody with Washington, joining Rwanda and South Sudan.

“This is simply a impermanent statement with conditions including that individuals with transgression records and unaccompanied minors volition not beryllium accepted,” Vincent Bagiire Waiswa, the ministry’s imperishable secretary, said successful a statement.

He besides stated Uganda’s penchant that “individuals from African countries shall beryllium the ones transferred to Uganda”.

“The 2 parties are moving retired the elaborate modalities connected however the statement shall beryllium implemented,” helium said.

It was not wide if the statement had been signed, but the ministry connection said it had been “concluded”.

The announcement comes a time aft a elder Ugandan authoritative denied media reports saying that the state had agreed to instrumentality successful radical deported from the US, saying it lacked the facilities to accommodate them.

Foreign Affairs Minister Henry Okello Oryem told the Associated Press quality bureau that portion Uganda has a benevolent exile policy, determination are limits.

“We are talking astir cartels: radical who are unwanted successful their ain countries. How tin we integrate them into section communities successful Uganda?” helium asked.

He said the authorities was successful discussions astir “visas, tariffs, sanctions, and related issues, not accepting amerciable aliens from the US. That would beryllium unfair to Ugandans”.

The UN’s exile bureau notes that Uganda has a “progressive exile policy, maintaining an open-door attack to asylum”.

However, the state besides saw a “significant” summation successful arrivals successful 2024, it said, chiefly arsenic a effect of Sudan’s civilian war, but besides unrest successful South Sudan and the eastbound Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Since returning to the White House successful January, Trump has taken a fig of actions aimed astatine speeding up deportations of undocumented migrants to 3rd countries.

In July, the US deported 5 men with transgression backgrounds to Eswatini and sent 8 much to South Sudan.

Trump’s medication besides deported hundreds of alleged Venezuelan pack members to El Salvador, wherever they were kept successful a high-security jailhouse with mediocre conditions earlier being returned to Venezuela.

Rights experts person warned that the deportations hazard breaking planetary instrumentality by sending radical to countries wherever they look the hazard of torture, abduction and different abuses.