According to the investigation, at least 25,447 people had been transferred to 28 countries as of August 31, 2026. The US government had not publicly disclosed the overall figure.
The administration of US President Donald Trump has negotiated agreements with at least 35 countries to accept migrants deported from the United States despite having no ties to the countries receiving them, with more than 25,000 people sent to third countries since 2025, an international investigation has found.
The investigation, published by Forbidden Stories in collaboration with The Washington Post, The Guardian and other media organisations, found that the deportation programme was negotiated largely through a little-known State Department division called the Office of Remigration, established during a major restructuring of the department in 2025.
The arrangements have been shrouded in administrative and diplomatic secrecy, while internal US government documents reviewed by the consortium show that the State Department planned to spend at least $410 million to secure agreements with third countries.
Of that amount, at least $81 million was earmarked for governments that agreed to receive deportees, while more than $178 million was intended for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and over $123 million for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
According to the investigation, at least 25,447 people had been transferred to 28 countries as of August 31, 2026. The US government had not publicly disclosed the overall figure.
The deportees included people sent to countries with which they had no previous connection. Iranians were sent to Panama, Laotians to Eswatini and Venezuelans to Liberia, among other transfers.
Human Rights First, which has tracked the removals with Refugees International through the Third-Country Deportation Watch project, said the US government had been opaque about the transfers.
“Over the past year, the government had been very opaque about these third country transfers,” Savi Arvey, the organisation’s Director of Policy, Refugee & Immigrant Rights, said.
“These [flights] were being carried out in secret,” she said.
Secret negotiations
The investigation identified Christian Jové Ehrhardt, a 41-year-old US diplomat and head of the Office of Remigration, as a key figure involved in negotiating the agreements.
Ehrhardt made about 10 overseas trips within a year to negotiate arrangements with foreign governments.
During a November 2025 visit to Cameroon, he met the country’s foreign relations minister, Felix Mbayu. Publicly, the discussions were described as covering security, health and humanitarian assistance.
But according to the investigation, Ehrhardt’s principal objective was to negotiate an agreement allowing the US to deport third-country nationals to Cameroon.
A memorandum of understanding was finalised on December 16, 2025.
On the same day, the US approved a five-year health assistance programme for Cameroon worth nearly $400 million. The following month, the State Department announced another $30 million contribution to UNHCR in Cameroon to facilitate the voluntary return of refugees and combat illegal immigration.
The first flight carrying deportees from the US arrived in Cameroon on January 14, 2026.
The memorandum was only uploaded to the State Department’s website months later.
Millions offered to receiving countries
The investigation found that financial incentives formed a significant part of the US strategy.
Palau, a Pacific island nation with a population of fewer than 18,000 people, signed an agreement with Washington on Christmas Eve 2025 to accept up to 75 third-country nationals.
In return, the US agreed to provide Palau with $7.5 million, equivalent to $100,000 for each deportee, excluding the cost of transporting them.
The agreement limited the arrangement to people without criminal records or those whose offences were immigration-related. Palau also retained the right to remove individuals from the list of deportees supplied by US authorities.
In practice, however, the US struggled to find migrants who met Palau’s requirements. When the first flight arrived in May 2026, only one person was ultimately transferred, despite 10 names reportedly being submitted initially. Two more people were subsequently sent.
Eswatini, by contrast, agreed to accept deportees with criminal records and received more than $5 million under its agreement. At least 32 people had arrived there by the time of the investigation, out of a possible 160.
The internal documents showed that Palau and Eswatini were among 13 countries that received direct payments for accepting deportees.
Those direct payments, however, represented only about 20% of the funds the State Department allocated to secure third-country agreements.
US aid used as incentives
A substantial portion of the planned $410 million was allocated to international organisations.
The documents showed that more than $178 million was earmarked for the IOM, while more than $123 million was intended for UNHCR.
The investigation quoted a current US official as describing some of the funding as “sweeteners” used to encourage foreign governments to participate in the deportation arrangements.
One former State Department official who resigned over objections to the policy said the administration wanted “fast money, with no strings attached.”
The former official also alleged that the arrangements were designed to bypass congressional notification requirements for money sent to foreign governments.
The IOM and UNHCR denied being parties to the bilateral deportation agreements.
UNHCR said its US funding was being used within its mandate to support countries in strengthening their asylum systems.
The IOM said its decisions to accept funding and provide assistance were guided by its mandate and the question of whether its involvement would improve the lives of affected migrants.
Migrants sent to countries they did not know
The investigation found that some deportees had previously obtained protection preventing their removal to their countries of origin because they could face persecution there.
The Trump administration nevertheless used third-country arrangements to transfer some of them elsewhere.
White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said the policy applied to migrants whose home countries would not accept them, including people described by the administration as dangerous criminals or those with removal orders who had asked not to be returned to their home countries.
Immigration attorney Alma David, however, said some deportees were placed in situations where they had little meaningful choice about what happened to them.
“They were told in many cases once they were on a plane in handcuffs where they were going,” David said, arguing that there was no genuine voluntariness or agency in their arrival in the third countries.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 15 deportees arrived in June 2026, according to a State Department document obtained by the consortium. Ten later opted to return to their countries of origin through an IOM programme.
The investigation also obtained an IOM risk assessment warning that the organisation could be perceived as complicit in the third-country deportation programme.
It said migrants could otherwise be left without adequate assistance in unfamiliar countries, facing language barriers and unclear legal status.
From traditional safe-third-country deals to new arrangements
The Trump administration’s approach differs from the legally binding “Safe Third Country Agreements” negotiated during Trump’s first term.
Under those arrangements, receiving countries were expected to provide legal guarantees that deportees would not face torture or persecution and would have access to asylum procedures.
The new arrangements, known as Third Country National Agreements, are described as more informal and can be implemented more quickly.
Palau, for instance, signed such an agreement.
The investigation found that Costa Rica signed a Safe Third Country Agreement in 2025 that was never implemented. It subsequently signed a separate Third Country National Agreement allowing the US to send up to 25 people a week.
Almost 400 people were reportedly transferred to Costa Rica under the newer arrangement in five months.
Court challenges
The deportation programme has also faced legal challenges in the US.
A federal appeals court on September 18 ordered a halt to third-country removals, finding that migrants had not been given adequate notice or an opportunity to challenge their removal.
The ruling upheld an earlier February decision requiring the administration to provide hearings for migrants facing third-country removal.
Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, described the decision as a major victory and said the removals that had already occurred were illegal.
The Trump administration, however, disputed the effect of the ruling.
James Percival, General Counsel to the Department of Homeland Security, said on X that the decision was “not currently in effect,” arguing that the government could send migrants elsewhere if they claimed fear of returning to their home countries.
‘Remigration’ office
The investigation also examined the State Department’s Office of Remigration, which was created as part of a restructuring of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration in 2025.
The approximately 15-person office is responsible for negotiating and implementing many of the third-country arrangements.
The investigation said the term “remigration” has historically been associated with far-right and neo-Nazi movements in Europe, although the Trump administration rejects that characterization.
US officials have described the office’s goal as restoring border security as a central element of national security and ending mass migration.
The State Department said Ehrhardt and Andrew Veprek, a senior official overseeing the bureau, were “dedicated public servants who have worked tirelessly to promote prosperity and security for the American people.”
The investigation also found that Veprek had pushed for a broader transformation of the bureau, with refugee and humanitarian programmes increasingly redirected towards implementing the administration’s immigration agenda.
Programme expanding beyond the US
The investigation found that the administration’s third-country deportation model could have implications beyond the United States.
Plans for similar “return hubs” are reportedly being developed in Europe, while the term “remigration” has become increasingly prominent in political debates in parts of Europe.
An Office of Remigration map dated March 2026 showed that 49 of Africa’s 54 countries had been approached about accepting third-country deportees, with nine reportedly involved in ongoing negotiations .
Ehrhardt and other senior State Department officials were also expected to meet African and Latin American delegations in New York during the September 2026 United Nations General Assembly.
Savi Arvey of Human Rights First said the scale of the policy represented an unprecedented prioritisation of the administration’s deportation agenda across the US diplomatic corps.
“It also seems to send a message to immigrant communities across the United States that if they don’t give up their legal claims and self deport, they could be sent at a moment’s notice,” she said, “to a country they’ve never heard of.”
