Sierra Leone has become the latest African country to receive migrants deported from the United States as part of President Donald Trump’s intensified crackdown on illegal immigration.
A chartered Boeing plane carrying nine West African migrants landed at Sierra Leone’s international airport near Freetown on Wednesday morning.
Last week, Foreign Minister Timothy Musa Kabba said Sierra Leone had agreed to accept up to 300 deportees per year. However, he stressed that the country would only take individuals from ECOWAS member states, the West African economic bloc.
The group that arrived consisted of seven men and two women, all appearing forlorn. One deportee resisted leaving the plane and had to be physically removed. Officials said five were from Ghana, two from Guinea, and one each from Nigeria and Senegal.
The deportees were taken to facilities run by Kenvah Solutions, a private company. The firm said they would be housed for up to two weeks before being sent to their respective home countries.
Deportation Campaign
The US has already sent deportees to several other African countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, and South Sudan. Dozens of migrants have been flown to third countries, nations they had not previously lived in since President Trump returned to power in January 2025.
Mass deportation was a central promise of Trump’s re-election campaign. According to a US Senate report, the administration has spent over $40 million on third-country deportations up to January 2026.
Critics, including Human Rights Watch, have warned that deporting migrants to third countries violates international human rights standards and puts vulnerable people at risk. Last September, the group urged African nations not to accept such “opaque deals.”
Like Sierra Leone, Ghana has also agreed to accept only deportees from ECOWAS countries. In contrast, nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Eswatini have received deportees from farther afield, including Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Vietnam.
