First 20 U.S. Deportees Arrive in Liberia Under Third-Country Deal Expected to Include Venezuelans and Cubans

The first 20 people deported from the United States under a new agreement with Liberia arrived in the West African country on Thursday, beginning a program that could eventually receive as many as 1,200 third-country deportees.

Most people transferred under the agreement are expected to come from Latin America, including Venezuela, Cuba and Colombia, Liberian Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah told Reuters.

The government has not disclosed the nationalities of the first 20 arrivals, as Reuters reports.

The flight landed in Monrovia at 12:45 p.m. local time after departing Louisiana and stopping in Dakar, Senegal, according to two Liberian security sources and the ICE Flight Monitor cited by the news outlet.

Liberia agreed this week to accept up to 1,200 people over the next 12 months, making the arrangement one of the Trump administration’s largest third-country deportation deals. Liberian officials said the deportees would be treated as “guests,” could leave the country and would be eligible to seek asylum there.

Liberia has said it did not demand compensation for accepting the deportees, though the U.S. has awarded the country $5 million for “migration management activities,” according to Reuters. The Guardian also reported that Washington agreed to extend U.S. visitor visas for Liberians from 12 to 36 months and pledged $124 million in assistance.

The agreement comes as the Trump administration expands the use of third countries to remove immigrants who cannot be returned directly to their countries of origin, including some who have received U.S. legal protections because immigration judges determined they could face persecution or torture at home.

Human Rights First and Refugees International said in an August 18 update to their Third Country Deportation Watch that the administration has reached transfer arrangements with more than 35 countries since January 2025 and sent more than 23,000 people to 26 countries through mid-August.

The groups have documented cases in which immigrants protected from removal to their home countries were instead sent to third countries and subsequently returned home. The Guardian separately reported that a Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democratic staff report found more than 80% of people transferred to third countries examined in its investigation eventually returned to their countries of origin.