Guyana receives six deportees from US under Trump's expanded third-country deportation program

Guyana says that it has received six people deported from the United States, as the administration of President Donald Trump steps up so-called third-country deportations.

Guyana’s Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud announced that a group of Cuban and Afghan nationals had arrived in the South American nation on Saturday, after being deported due to immigration issues.

“The US has not made any further requests” for non-citizen deportations to be sent to Guyana at this time, Persaud told The Associated Press news agency.

None had criminal backgrounds, according to Persaud. The removals are part of an ongoing campaign under Trump, who promised during his 2024 re-election bid to engineer the “largest deportation programme of criminals in the history of America”.

Persaud said that Guyana reached an agreement with the US to receive deportees after months of negotiations.

The human rights nonprofit Amnesty International estimates that more than 30 countries have entered into such agreements since Trump returned to office, including 15 in the Americas region.

The deal with Guyana will last for one year and does not constitute permanent resettlement, Persaud said.

Third-country deportations involve sending foreign nationals to places outside of their country of origin. Deportees often have no familiarity with the country they are sent to and sometimes do not even speak the language.

The Trump administration has sought to expand the use of third-country deportations.

It has struck agreements with a range of countries around the world, including several as far afield as Africa. Some of the deals have involved multimillion-dollar payments.

Trump officials have justified the effort by arguing that some countries, such as Cuba, refuse to accept deportees from the US.

Rights groups, however, have denounced the practice as an effort to punish migrants and pressure them into giving up their immigration claims in the US.

Many of the deportees have no criminal background, reflecting the expanding scope of Trump’s deportation efforts during his second term.

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a research organisation at Syracuse University, estimates that 70.6 percent of foreign nationals currently in US immigration detention have no criminal conviction.

Third-country deportations have also raised concerns about conditions in the countries non-citizens are sent to. Some countries struggle with poverty, instability and conflict, as well as human rights abuses.

The deportees sent to Guyana on Saturday will receive resources through the Assisted Voluntary Return Programme, run by the United Nations International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

Under the arrangement, those deported will await the outcome of their immigration process in Guyana.

They could return to their countries of origin or seek relocation elsewhere.

Efforts to restrict immigration, deport foreign nationals and crack down on civil immigration infractions have become a hallmark of Trump’s second term.

As part of that campaign, the Trump administration has stripped tens of thousands of migrants in the country of their legal status, through the cancellation of programmes like Temporary Protected Status or humanitarian parole.

Reports have also emerged that the administration plans to strip visas from roughly 200,000 people seeking asylum.

The removal of their legal immigration status exposes foreign nationals to the risk of deportation, in some cases despite ongoing conflicts or unstable conditions in their destination countries.