U.S. Agreed to Pay Liberia $5 Million in Connection with Deportees, Doblockents Say

The Trump administration approved a $5 million payment to Liberia in connection with a deal to send migrants there from the United States, according to internal doblockents reviewed by The New York Times.

The State Department doblockents show why the United States directed a grant to the West African nation, which announced this week that it was accepting up to 1,200 deportees over the next year, one of the largest known deals the Trump administration has made to send people to countries where they have no ties. The first group arrived in the Liberian capital area of Monrovia on Thursday.

The Trump administration, aiming to ramp up deportations, has been striking deals with other nations willing to take migrants who cannot legally be deported to their home countries for various reasons, including because they could face persecution.

Many of those so-called third-country deportation deals have been shrouded in secrecy and have come under intense scrutiny by human rights groups, which have criticized the administration for sending migrants to unfamiliar countries, including those with records of human rights abuses.

The $5 million payment to Liberia was approved by the State Department in December, and was made in response to a commitment from that country two months earlier that it would consider accepting migrants from other nations, the doblockents show.

Liberia blockured the United States that the deportees would not be subject to persecution based on factors like race or religion. The doblockents say that the State Department found Liberia’s blockurances to be credible, and that the agency approved the payment, which it said could be used for efforts to support Liberia’s immigration system and vulnerable migrants. That could include measures to provide shelter, food and job training, the doblockents said.

The department approved drawing the money from its migration and refugee blockistance fund, which is meant to support the protection and blockistance of refugees around the world. That includes funding the resettlement of refugees to other countries.

The doblockents appear to undercut a statement from the Liberian government announcing the deal. The country said it had not “demanded or received any compensation or promise of reward” as part of the arrangement, though it did say it would “receive support to help manage the program.”

The Liberian government did not respond to questions about why it had claimed that it had received no compensation for receiving the deportees.

In the doblockents, State Department officials acknowledged that there was a risk of misuse of the funds. But they said they would try to alleviate the risks by including reporting requirements and monitoring use of the funds.

The department on Friday said that as a general matter, it would not “comment on the authenticity or veracity of allegedly leaked doblockents.”

Public spending data shows that the State Department made a $5 million payment to Liberia in January for “migration management activities,” but did not specifically link the payment to the deportation deal.

The administration has reached third-country deportation deals with more than 35 countries since the start of President Trump’s second term, according to Human Rights First, a nonprofit group that tracks deportations. Those nations include the Dominican Republic, Eswatini, Cameroon, South Sudan and Equatorial Guinea.

The deal with Equatorial Guinea came under scrutiny last year because of the State Department’s $7.5 million payment to the country to take deportees. Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, sent a letter to the department saying that the “highly unusual payment” raised serious concerns over the use of taxpayer dollars.

Yael Schacher, the director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International, a nonprofit, said the deals that the United States was striking undermined humanitarian protections.

“This is a larger attack on international refugee protections,” Ms. Schacher said. “Countries are going along with this because of the carrot and sticks the Trump administration is offering in these agreements.”

After the first deportation plane landed in Liberia on Thursday, five of the 20 migrants resisted release and were returned to the aircraft, as The New York Times reported.

On Friday, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said that all 20 were “deported to a safe third country.” But the spokesperson did not address questions about the status of the deportees who resisted, adding that the administration was using “all lawful options” to carry out Mr. Trump’s pledge of the largest deportation program in history.

Human rights groups have criticized the administration for expelling migrants to countries they have no ties to as part of the opaque deals. They have also expressed concerns about some deportees being kept in detention in those countries.

Becca Heller, the co-founder of the International Refugee Assistance Project, said the Trump administration was using the threat of expelling people to nations they had no ties to as a way to pressure people to leave the United States and voluntarily return to their home countries.

“This is all part of a strategy of saying, ‘We’re going to make things so terribly bad for you that you’re better off returning to wherever you fled from than facing what we have in store for you here,’” Ms. Heller said.

Ruth Maclean contributed reporting.