Burundi agrees to receive some US-deported migrants, official says
Burundi says it will accept people deported from the United States who have no prior connection to the country, provided they face no prosecution and have no links to terrorism. Officials have not said how many people will arrive or when, while a US appeals ruling has raised questions over third-country deportations.
Burundi has agreed to accept some migrants deported from the United States, but officials have not said when they will arrive or how many people the country will receive. Nancy Ninette Mutoni, a spokesperson for Burundi’s president, said the country would accept people with no previous connection to Burundi only if they were not facing prosecution and had no links to terrorism. She made the statement during an event attended by government officials in Ngozi.
Mutoni said preparations were under way to provide accommodation and help the deportees live in local communities. “Receiving them requires serious planning — where they will stay, what they will eat and how they will live alongside the local population,” she said. The arrangement forms part of the Trump administration’s expansion of third-country deportations under its immigration crackdown.
The policy sends people to countries where they are not citizens and may never have lived. The United States has sent deportees to several African countries, including Eswatini and South Sudan. A US appeals court ruling last week, however, cast uncertainty over the programme.
Lawyers for immigrants said a flight carrying about 70 people had been scheduled to travel from Louisiana to Burundi, Rwanda and the Central African Republic, but was cancelled. The court did not prohibit third-country deportations but required people facing removal to have a meaningful opportunity to raise concerns about possible persecution or torture. The Trump administration has defended the policy as necessary when migrants’ home countries refuse to accept them.
Burundi’s announcement did not provide further details about the agreement, the screening process or arrangements for the people it may receive. Mutoni’s conditions indicate that Burundi does not intend to accept people facing prosecution or suspected links to terrorism. The supplied material did not say how those conditions would be assessed or identify the migrants covered by the arrangement.
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