Let's check in on where Trump is deporting people this month
We’re going to need some data visualization help to keep track of which repressive countries have struck deals with the Trump administration to accept deported immigrants. This week, it’s Honduras and Uganda. Well, for sure Honduras. Maybe Uganda. Probably definitely Uganda.
Because all of this is unfolding in the shadows, it’s impossible to get a straight answer on which countries are included in this inhumane horror show. On Tuesday, CBS News reported that the administration reached an agreement with Uganda to join the cavalcade of third-country deportee destinations. On Wednesday, a Ugandan official denied there was a deal, but by later that day, Uganda confirmed that it would be accepting deportees.
The agreement with Uganda specifies that it will take deportees who hail from other countries in Africa, but the country will not accept people with criminal histories. Indeed, it looks like many of the people that Uganda has agreed to accept presented themselves at the U.S.-Mexico border claiming asylum.
That’s a far cry from President Donald Trump’s claim that we were facing an immigration crisis that required a whole-of-government effort to track down and deport the most vicious undocumented criminals. Now, we’re just openly renditioning people to third countries because they followed international law in an attempt to seek asylum.
Related | Supreme Court says Trump can resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own
Meanwhile, Honduras will be accepting several hundred people from Spanish-speaking countries, including families. Aww, it’s nice that families can stay together, and we can all work to hit the 3,000-per-day number that dead-eyed ghoul and top Trump adviser Stephen Miller wants deported.
By now it probably goes without saying that the countries the administration keeps making these agreements with tend to be places that the U.S. government has already documented as dangerous. According to the State Department, Uganda is under a Level 3 travel advisory, which warns that Americans should reconsider travel there due to persistent violent crime and terrorist attacks on churches, schools, police stations, and tourist areas.
The State Department’s 2024 Human Rights Practices report for Uganda lists reams of human rights violations including extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, recruitment of children into armed conflicts, and violence against journalists. Terrific place to send people who sought asylum, yep.
Honduras is under the same Level 3 advisory for travel. While this Biden-era warning likely meant this as problematic, the current administration probably sees it as a selling point.
“In December 2022, the Government of Honduras declared a ‘State of Exception’ in response to high levels of extortion and other crimes,” the advisory states. “The declaration remains in effect and has been modified to include more cities. It allows the police to suspend constitutional rights in 226 of the country’s 298 municipalities.”
So, pretty much what Trump would do if he could—and pretty much what the administration is actively trying to do in Washington, D.C.
Uganda and Honduras can now join Rwanda, which started accepting deportees earlier this month. Also in the club: Eswatini, where we started sending people in July. And in May, it was South Sudan, and so on. Sure, terrified immigrants might not be sent to a hellish megaprison in El Salvador, but they can still be dropped into whatever country is willing to make a deal with Trump.
The conservatives on the Supreme Court have blessed this arrangement, and the administration has infinite money for this monstrous endeavor thanks to Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. Apparently, there are enough repressive countries willing to go along with this as well. Who knows what fresh hell September will bring?