US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has spoken on the phone with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to discuss opportunities to deepen U.S.-Uganda cooperation on migration, reciprocal trade, and commercial ties.
According to Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott, the Secretary on Thursday thanked Uganda for providing a model of regional stability, including its valuable contributions to peacekeeping in East Africa.
A day earlier, internal government documents obtained by CBS News showed the Trump administration has expanded its campaign to Uganda and Honduras, as it persuades countries around the world to aid its crackdown on illegal immigration by accepting deportations of migrants who are not their own citizens.
“The documents indicate Uganda in East Africa recently agreed to accept deportees from the U.S. who hail from other countries on the continent, as long as they don’t have criminal histories. It’s unclear how many deportees Uganda would ultimately accept under the arrangement with the U.S. government. Honduras’ government has also agreed to receive deportees from other Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, including families traveling with children, the documents show. The government of Honduras agreed to a relatively small number of deportations — just several hundred over two years — but the documents indicate it could decide to accept more,” CBS News reported.
According to CBS News, both agreements are based on a “safe third country” provision of U.S. immigration law that allows officials to reroute asylum-seekers to countries that are not their own if the U.S. government makes a determination that those nations can fairly hear their claims for humanitarian protection.
Foreign Affairs PS Vincent Bagiire later clarified that the agreement is temporary with conditions including that individuals with criminal records and unaccompanied minors will not be accepted.
He said Uganda also prefers that individuals from African countries shall be the ones transferred to Uganda. The two parties are working out the detailed modalities on how the agreement shall be implemented.
“At least a dozen countries have already accepted or agreed to accept deportees from other nations since the second Trump administration took office, and U.S. officials have been aggressively courting other governments. Internal government documents show the Trump administration has also asked countries like Ecuador and Spain to receive these so-called third-country deportees from the U.S.”