KIGALI (AFP) — Rwanda said Tuesday it would accept up to 250 migrants from the United States under a deal agreed with Washington but gave no details on who could be included.
President Donald Trump’s administration has negotiated controversial arrangements to send people to third countries, among them South Sudan and Eswatini, in order to speed up deportations.
The latest deal follows a cancelled agreement with Britain under which Kigali would have received deported illegal migrants from the United Kingdom, but that multi-million deal was scrapped after the conservative British government that negotiated it lost last year’s elections.
“Rwanda has agreed with the United States to accept up to 250 migrants,” government spokesperson Yolande Makolo told Agence France-Presse.
She said Kigali would maintain “the ability to approve each individual proposed for resettlement.”
The US State Department did not confirm the accord but a spokesperson said the US was working with Rwanda “on a range of mutual priorities.”
The spokesperson added that implementing Trump’s immigration policies was “a top priority.”
Makolo said Kigali had agreed to the new scheme with Washington because “nearly every Rwandan family has experienced the hardships of displacement” and the country supported reintegration and rehabilitation.