Liberia to take up to 1,200 US deportees

Liberia said on August 18 that it intends to accept up to 1,200 foreign nationals transferred from the United States within a year, as President Donald Trump's administration expands deportations to countries that are not migrants' homelands.

The Liberian government said a first group of 20 deportees would arrive on August 20. It said they would be "free to depart the country when they so desire" or apply for asylum.

The Trump administration has argued that it can send people to a country that is not their home nation. The New York Times reported that the administration wants to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant who became a symbol of mass deportations, to Liberia after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.

In Africa, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea have become key transit points in the US immigration crackdown, even as authorities there quickly send people onwards to their home countries.

Two former US State Department officials told AFP that Washington is using visa bans and restrictions on African countries to pressure them into taking people from third countries.

The Liberian government said it "has not demanded or received any compensation or promise of rewards" in exchange for taking part in the programme. It said Liberia would receive support to help manage the programme and strengthen its migration system more broadly, and described the arrangement as "entirely humanitarian".

Liberia was founded in the early 19th century by a society that advocated the return of former slaves and freeborn African-Americans from the United States.