Since President Trump’s return to office, thousands of illegal aliens living in the U.S. and waiting for rulings on their ‘asylum claims’ were suddenly ordered deported to countries where most have no ties. Courtesy Photo
Eight asylum seekers from the United States, all third-country nationals of African origin, arrived at Entebbe International Airport on Friday, April 3, 2026, in the inaugural transfers under a U.S.-Uganda bilateral agreement signed last July.
Approved by a U.S. immigration judge, the group, neither Ugandan nor American citizens, marks Uganda’s entry into America’s expanding network of “safe third country” partnerships amid heated domestic backlash.
The move follows closely on the heels of a separate group of 12 deportees who arrived via private charter on April 2, prompting condemnation from the Uganda Law Society (ULS).
“This is an undignified, harrowing, and dehumanizing spectacle that treats vulnerable people like chattel for unnamed private interests,” ULS declared in a statement, filing a High Court petition alongside the East Africa Law Society to block further transfers. They describe the arrangement as an “international illegality” tied to a “broader authoritarian project.”
Uganda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the arrivals in a statement, emphasizing: “These individuals are of African origin, neither Ugandan nor American, and reluctant to return home.”
Permanent Secretary Bagiire Vincent Waiswa hailed it as aligning with Uganda’s “longstanding commitment to sanctuary and dignity.”
State Minister Henry Okello Oryem added a pan-African lens: “It’s a humanitarian concern for Africans unwanted elsewhere.”
U.S. Embassy officials in Kampala verified the process unfolded “in full cooperation” with Uganda, citing privacy rules on individual cases.
Signed on July 29, 2025, in Kampala and published in the U.S. Federal Register on September 3 (90 FR 48207), the Agreement for Cooperation in the Examination of Protection Requests allows the U.S. to send asylum seekers deemed unlikely to qualify for protection there, but at risk in their home countries, to Uganda for full Refugee Status Determination (RSD).
Uganda holds veto power on a case-by-case basis, explicitly excluding those with criminal records or unaccompanied minors. The pact stresses non-refoulement, the international ban on returning anyone to persecution or torture, enshrined in the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, its 1967 Protocol, and the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention.
Uganda’s Refugees Act of 2006 operationalizes this framework, mandating fair RSD processes. On the U.S. side, it falls under the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. § 1158), fueling a Trump-era push for deals with over a dozen nations to curb border asylum claims (per Immigration Policy Tracking Project data).
Critics counter that Uganda, hosting nearly 2 million refugees, mainly from DR Congo (over 600,000), South Sudan (500,000+), Sudan, and Eritrea (UNHCR figures as of March 2026), faces strained resources.
A December 2025 policy halted new refugee status for nationals from select non-warring states amid donor funding cuts (down 20 percent YoY per UNHCR). “Can our overburdened system guarantee fair, timely hearings?” asks the ULS petition, warning of due process erosion.
The court challenge tests the deal’s legality under Ugandan law and international obligations, balancing Uganda’s generosity against capacity limits in Africa’s top refugee haven.
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