The Trump administration has spent more than $1m per person to deport some migrants to countries they have no connection to, only to see many sent back to their home nations at further taxpayer expense, according to a new congressional investigation.
A 30-page report from Senate foreign relations committee Democrats, released on Thursday and shared with the Guardian, details how the US government paid more than $32m to five foreign governments – including some of the world’s most corrupt regimes – to accept approximately 300 third-country nationals deported from the US.
In the most extreme case, the administration paid Rwanda $7.5m plus an estimated $601,864 in flight costs to accept just seven people – about $1.1m per individual, according to the report’s analysis of government spending data and flight records. The administration similarly paid Equatorial Guinea $7.5m to take 29 people, costing taxpayers an estimated $282,126 per person. Palau was paid $7.5m with no documented flights, Eswatini was paid $5.1m for 15 people, and El Salvador $4.76m for about 250 people.
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