MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, September 19 — In a shocking turn of events, thousands of Afghans who fled to the United States during the Taliban takeover in August 2021 are now facing the grim possibility of deportation to countries they have never known. Many of these individuals risked everything to escape persecution, often serving alongside U.S. forces. Now, under the Trump administration’s harsh anti-migration policies, they find themselves dehumanized and treated as mere cargo.
The expanded deportation program initiated by Trump targets an estimated 10 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., many of whom entered the country without authorization, had their visas expire, or faced asylum claim denials. In the first hundred days of Trump’s presidency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) apprehended over 66,000 individuals and deported more than 65,000. By August, the number of deportations had reached approximately 200,000.
However, the Trump administration’s approach goes beyond simply sending undocumented immigrants back to their home countries. It has embraced a particularly brutal tactic: deporting individuals to distant nations with which they have no ties. This strategy starkly illustrates the U.S. government’s willingness to violate fundamental humanitarian principles for political gain.
Employing an obscure immigration law, the administration has sought to deport individuals to various countries, offering financial incentives or exerting diplomatic pressure to persuade these nations to accept U.S. deportees. A dozen countries, including Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Paraguay in the Americas, as well as Eswatini, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Uganda in Africa, have recently signed agreements to accept such deportations. This geographic diversity reveals that the policy is not genuinely about returning individuals to their transit countries, but rather about finding anyone willing to accept a financial trade-off for unwanted human beings.
The transactional nature of this program is stark, with countries receiving payments, trade concessions, sanctions relief, and other diplomatic benefits in exchange for accepting deportees. For instance, Uganda formalized an agreement with the U.S. government amid ongoing U.S. sanctions against its officials, suggesting that the acceptance of migrants was linked to improved diplomatic relations. Similarly, Rwanda’s agreement coincided with U.S.-mediated discussions concerning the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, indicating the use of deportation as leverage in unrelated diplomatic negotiations. It remains doubtful that the U.S. government will criticize the human rights records of repressive regimes like El Salvador, Eswatini, and Rwanda now that it has secured migration management deals with them.
The United States has a long history of outsourcing asylum processing, but these practices have reached new heights under Trump. The administration appears willing to send individuals to war zones or authoritarian regimes, even directly into prisons, thereby violating core international laws that safeguard the right to seek asylum and prohibit the return of individuals to places where they could face harm.
A particularly alarming instance involves Venezuelan deportees sent to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Centre, an overcrowded facility known for severe human rights violations. In March, the U.S. government accused 238 Venezuelan men of gang affiliation based solely on superficial indicators like tattoos and clothing choices, justifying their expedited removal to this inhumane environment. The U.S. government reportedly agreed to pay El Salvador $6 million to house these deportees, effectively commodifying the very notion of safety for those fleeing violence and persecution. This situation culminated in these individuals being returned to Venezuela as part of a prisoner swap, raising serious ethical concerns about the use of migrants as pawns in diplomatic negotiations.
Trump’s immigration policies are not limited to recent arrivals; they also target long-term residents who have spent years building their lives in the United States. This approach has ignited a wave of unprecedented resistance that transcends traditional political lines. Teachers are stepping up to protect the families of their students, employers are refusing to assist with ICE raids, and religious leaders are providing sanctuary. Communities are rallying to form mutual aid networks and early warning systems to shield one another.
In response to the intensified ICE raids, which aim to fulfill a quota of 3,000 arrests per day, people have taken to the streets in protest across the United States. Sanctuary cities like Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco have experienced particularly vigorous resistance against federal efforts to apprehend migrants. Civil society activists have confronted ICE agents, blocked deportation vehicles, staged protests at airports, and launched boycott campaigns against companies benefiting from deportations.
The scale of this resistance has prompted an alarming federal military response, with the deployment of over 4,000 national guard troops and 700 marines to Los Angeles, actions that many argue are illegal and further escalate tensions.
Trump’s policies not only legitimize xenophobia and racism but also poison political discourse and deepen societal divisions. By treating refugees as commodities to be bartered, the U.S. is sending a dangerous message to authoritarian regimes around the world: that human rights are negotiable and can be sacrificed for political gain.
The United States now stands at a crossroads, facing a choice between two divergent paths. It can persist in its transactional cruelty, viewing individuals as problems to be offloaded, thereby empowering authoritarian governments and undermining international law. Alternatively, it can reaffirm its commitment to humanitarian principles, providing safe and legal migration pathways while addressing the root causes that compel people to flee their homes.
To uphold its moral and legal obligations, the United States must halt all offshore migration management agreements, cease deporting asylum seekers to unsafe countries with which they have no connection, and restore the fundamental belief that seeking safety is a human right, not a crime.
