Inside the Global Deal-Making Behind Trump’s Mass Deportations

U.S. diplomats in several overseas missions received an urgent cable from Washington this spring. They were told to ask nine countries in Africa and Central Asia to take in people expelled from the United States who were not citizens of those nations, including criminals.

It was a glimpse into President Trump’s wide campaign to get countries to accept America’s deportees. American diplomats are reaching out to countries in every corner of the globe, even some shattered by war or known for human rights abuses.

U.S. officials have approached Angola, Mongolia and embattled Ukraine. Kosovo has agreed to accept up to 50 people. Costa Rica is holding dozens.

The U.S. government paid Rwanda $100,000 to take an Iraqi man and is discussing sending more deportees there. Peru has said no so far, despite having been pressed repeatedly.

“The United States is eager to partner with countries willing to accept” people, the cable, dated March 12, said. It listed Tunisia, Togo and Turkmenistan among the possible destinations.

And the administration recently planned to fly citizens of mainly Asian and Latin American countries to war-torn Libya and South Sudan, until a U.S. district court blocked those expulsions. Libya was one of the nine countries mentioned in the cable, which has not been reported previously.