THE US has reached bilateral
deportation agreements with Honduras and Uganda as part of its crackdown on
illegal immigration, according documents obtained by the BBC's US partner CBS.
Under the agreement, Uganda has agreed to accept deported migrants as long as they don't have criminal histories, but it's unclear how many the country would ultimately take, CBS reported.
Honduras agreed to receive migrants over two years, including families travelling with children, but documents suggest it could decide to accept more.
Uganda has agreed to take an unclear
number of African and Asian migrants who had claimed asylum on the US-Mexico
border, and Honduras will receive several hundred deported people from
Spanish-speaking countries, CBS said.
The move is part of an attempt by
Donald Trump's administration to get more countries to accept deported migrants
that are not their own citizens.
Human rights campaigners have condemned the policy, saying migrants face the risk of being sent to countries where they could be harmed.
Both deals are part of the Trump
administration's broader push for deportation arrangements with countries on
several continents - including those with controversial human rights records.
So far, at least a dozen nations have
agreed to accept deported migrants from other countries.
Last week, the US State Department
announced it had signed a "safe third country" agreement with
Paraguay to "share the burden of managing illegal immigration".
The White House has also been
actively courting several African nations, with Rwanda saying earlier this
month it will take up to 250 migrants from the US.
A condition of the deal specifies
that Rwanda would have "the ability to approve each individual proposed
for resettlement", a government spokesperson told the BBC.
Rwanda has previously been criticised
for its human rights record, including the risk that those sent to the East
African nation could be deported again to countries where they may face danger.
Earlier this year, Panama and Costa
Rica agreed to take in several hundred African and Asian migrants from the US.
Government documents show the Trump
administration has also approached countries like Ecuador and Spain to receive deported
migrants, CBS reported.
Since the start of his second term,
Trump has embarked on sweeping efforts to remove undocumented migrants - a key
election promise that drew mass support during this campaign.
In June, the US Supreme Court cleared
the way for Trump to resume deportations of migrants to countries other than
their homeland without giving them the chance to raise the risks they might
face.
At the time, Justices Sonia
Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the majority
ruling, calling the decision "a gross abuse".
UN rights experts and human rights
groups have also argued that these removals to a nation that is not the
migrant's place of origin could violate international law.
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