Approximately 15 Latin American individuals deported from the United States arrived in Congo’s capital Kinshasa in the early hours of Friday, according to their lawyer, Alma David. These individuals, who had received legal protection from U.S. judges shielding them against being returned to their home countries, are now being held in a hotel in Kinshasa. The Congolese government plans to keep them in the country for a short period, David told The Associated Press. This transfer is part of a broader U.S. state policy to externalize the costs of managing populations deemed undesirable, shifting the burden to nations often with poor human rights records.
The deportees spent months in immigration detention in the U.S. fighting hard to not have to go home, David stated. An official at the Congolese migration agency confirmed the arrivals but did not provide further details. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations-affiliated agency, is involved to offer what it terms “assisted voluntary return.” David, however, called this focus “very alarming,” given the individuals' prior struggle against returning to their home countries, exposing the coercive nature of such "voluntary" programs. The IOM did not immediately respond to AP’s request for comment regarding its role in these arrangements.
The State's Imperial Policy
Congo’s Ministry of Communications announced earlier this month that it would receive migrants under a new deal established by the Trump administration’s third-country program. The Ministry described the arrangement as a “temporary” one, citing “human dignity and international solidarity.” Crucially, the statement emphasized that the deal would come with zero costs to the Congolese government, with the U.S. covering all needed logistics. This arrangement reveals the U.S. state's strategy of using financial incentives to secure compliance from other nations in its imperial policy of population control and the management of surplus populations.
The U.S. state has struck similar third-country deportation deals with at least seven other African nations. Many of these partner countries are among those most impacted by the Trump administration’s policies restricting trade, aid, and migration, demonstrating the leverage exerted by the U.S. in these agreements. A recent report by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee revealed that the Trump administration has spent at least $40 million to deport approximately 300 migrants to countries other than their own, illustrating the significant financial investment in this system of displacement.
Who Bears the Cost
Lawyers and activists have raised questions over the nature of these deals, particularly with countries in Africa and elsewhere. Several of the African nations that have signed such agreements, including Eswatini, South Sudan, and Equatorial Guinea, are known for their notoriously repressive governments and poor human rights records. The U.S. state apparatus, through these agreements, effectively leverages the vulnerabilities of these nations and their authoritarian structures to facilitate the displacement of unwanted labor and populations, while presenting it as a solution.
The Congolese Ministry of Communications statement also noted that no automatic transfer of the deportees is planned, adding that “Each situation will be subject to individual review in accordance with the laws of the Republic and national security requirements.” This clause underscores the state's ultimate control over the lives and movements of these dispossessed individuals, prioritizing national security over the human dignity it superficially claims to uphold. The entire program functions as a mechanism for the U.S. state to manage its internal class contradictions by physically removing and displacing populations that do not serve its capital interests, thereby externalizing the social and human costs.