Trump Administration Spent $40M+ to Deport 300 Migrants to Countries With No Ties
The Trump administration has spent more than $40 million to deport roughly 300 migrants to countries they had no connection to, according to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report reported by Bloomberg News.
That translates to an average of about $133,333 per person — a figure that underscores how costly the controversial third-country deportation strategy has become.
The Democratic-led report outlines how the U.S. government made large lump-sum transfers to foreign governments such as Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, El Salvador, Eswatini and Palau in exchange for accepting migrants the United States sought to remove.
Committee staff emphasized that there is no system to track how the money was spent once transferred, and the State Department reportedly did not use outside auditors to monitor spending.
One new complication the report highlights is that some migrants sent to third countries were later returned to their home nations at further taxpayer expense, suggesting the process may be inefficient and poorly coordinated.
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Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, top Democrat on the committee, said, “Millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent without meaningful oversight or accountability.”
The issue matters because it exposes how immigration enforcement spending is being allocated and raises concerns about transparency and diplomatic cost-benefit trade-offs as the administration expands this deportation approach.
The committee’s findings are likely to fuel further scrutiny in Congress and could lead to hearings or measures aimed at tightening oversight of third-country removal agreements.
What happens next could involve lawmakers demanding explanations from the State Department and potentially seeking legislative limits on how these funds are used.
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