Deportations to a third country were “previously a rare tool used only in exceptional circumstances.” He said But “the Trump administration has expanded the practice into a sprawling system of global removals,” sending $32 million in direct payments of taxpayer money to foreign governments, the authors write.
Five countries, including Palau and Rwanda, entered into these deals and received 300 people. In all, the administration spent more than $40 million on deportations, according to the report.
“This report outlines the Trump administration’s troubling practice of deporting individuals to third countries — places where those people have no connection — at significant cost to American taxpayers and raises serious questions,” said Shaheen, the committee’s ranking member. “Through third-country deportation deals, the Trump administration is putting millions of taxpayer dollars into the hands of foreign governments…For an administration that claims to control fraud, waste, and abuse, this policy is the epitome of all three.”
Senators conducted a 10-month review of management agreements and third-country deportations through January 2026, with staff traveling to those countries and meeting with deportees, lawyers, U.S. and foreign officials, and human rights organizations.
The senators said the agreements amount to “an expensive and dangerous form of shadow diplomacy that prioritizes the appearance of toughness over the security of Americans” and includes little oversight of whether public funds are used to fund human trafficking or human rights abuses.
While the agreements include “comprehensive language” on upholding international human rights laws, the report states, the senators’ comprehensive review revealed no evidence that the administration is systematically monitoring or tracking implementation, “raising serious concerns that safeguards provided by foreign governments exist only on paper and that the United States turns a blind eye to what happens to migrants in third countries.”
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee questioned Kart Wieland, deputy assistant secretary of state at the US State Department, about his work helping to create third-country agreements and “was unable to clarify whether there was any oversight of their treatment. Instead, he reiterated that “the agreement includes a provision that expressly mandates adherence to international human rights treaties and conventions.”
Committee members also heard from US officials in one country that they had been instructed “not to pursue the treatment of deportees.”
A Trump administration lawyer even acknowledged in a federal court case over deportations to Ghana, another country that has entered into agreements with the administration, that “Ghana appears to be violating the assurances it made to the United States, including that it would abide by the Convention against Torture, after sending an immigrant to a country where they would likely be tortured.”
The senators also found that the administration is likely to use third countries to circumvent US immigration law, carrying out deportations “prohibited by US law, such as sending protected individuals to countries where they may face persecution or death.”
The majority of migrants flown to third countries have court-ordered protections that prohibit the United States from returning them to their countries of origin, where they could face persecution or torture.
“While they were at the gas station in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the visible head appeared,” said one immigrant who received protective orders. [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] The official on the plane… told me that those on the plane would be sent to Ghana and that Ghana would send us to our home countries,” according to the report.
“The Trump administration’s defense is that the United States does not have the ability to tell Ghana what to do,” the document said, a claim it also made after it won condemnation for using the Alien Enemies Act to deport about 250 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, where they were imprisoned in the notorious Center for Terrorism Detention (CECOT).
The report also details how the administration has threatened some countries with increased tariffs, travel bans, or reductions in U.S. foreign aid if they do not enter into the deals.
“The Trump administration is expending political capital in its bilateral relationships that could instead be used to advance America’s most pressing national security interests, while not being transparent about the full scope of dealmaking, including what is offered to foreign governments,” the report said.
The senators stressed that they issued their report “at a time when the administration is aggressively seeking to strip hundreds of thousands of immigrants of legal status in the United States by ending temporary protected status and humanitarian parole, among other methods, raising the risk of expanding third-country deportations.”
Democrats on the committee said they would continue to oversee the agreements and demand transparency.
“The Trump administration must stop its use of third-country deportation agreements, which place millions of taxpayer dollars in the hands of foreign governments without oversight while turning a blind eye to the potential human cost,” they said.
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