Uganda’s state minister for foreign affairs said the country had not struck a deportation deal with the US following reports in Washington of an apparent agreement, as the White House steps up its immigration offensive.
CBS News said that it had obtained internal government documents showing that Uganda had agreed to accept an unclear number of asylum seekers in the US who come from other countries, as long as they don’t have criminal histories. The documents also showed that Honduras had agreed to accept deportees, the outlet reported, saying it would take several hundred over two years from other Spanish-speaking countries.
“To the best of my knowledge we have not reached such an agreement,” a junior Ugandan foreign minister told Reuters, saying the country did “not have the facilities and infrastructure to accommodate” US asylum seekers.
The Trump administration has been targeting African nations under its “safe third country” move to reroute deportees to countries that are not their own as it ramps up deportations. This month, Rwanda said it would accept up to 250 migrants from the US, while both South Sudan and Eswatini have accepted small numbers of deportees.