African Nation Says It Will Repatriate Migrants Deported by U.S.

The tiny African kingdom of Eswatini announced on Wednesday that it would repatriate the five migrants who had been deported there by the United States, a day after American officials said the migrants’ home countries had refused to accept them.

The migrants came from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen and Cuba, and had been serving time in American prisons for serious offenses, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Their removal was the first so-called third-country deportation from the United States to take place since the Supreme Court ruled this month that the Trump administration could move forward with the practice.

The flight included individuals whose own countries “refused to take them back,” Homeland Security Department Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote on X Tuesday night.

But an Eswatini government spokeswoman, Thabile Mdluli, said in a statement on Wednesday that the governments of her country and the United States, together with the International Organization for Migration, will “facilitate the transit of these inmates to their countries of origin.”

The International Organization for Migration said that it had no involvement in the removal of the migrants from the United States and had not been asked to provide any support with repatriation.