Uganda receives first US deportation flight under third-c...

What’s Happening

Breaking it down: Dozen people arrive under new deal but legal challenges expected with scheme criticised as ‘dehumanising process’ A flight carrying people being deported from the US has landed in Uganda, as Donald Trump’s administration pushes on with its strategy of expelling migrants to countries they have no ties to.

The deported people would stay in the east African country as “a transition phase for potential onward transmission to other countries”, an unnamed senior Ugandan government offic Deported people looking out of an airplane window during a deportation last year. The US has deported dozens of people to third countries. (and honestly, same)

Photograph: Jesús Vargas/ View image in fullscreen Deported people looking out of an airplane window during a deportation last year.

The Details

Photograph: Jesús Vargas/ US immigration Uganda receives first US deportation flight under third-country agreement Dozen people arrive under new deal but legal challenges expected with scheme criticised as ‘dehumanising process’ Rachel Savage and agencies Thu 2 Apr 2026 12. 37 EDT Last modified on Thu 2 Apr 2026 13.

18 EDT Prefer the Guardian on Google A flight carrying people being deported from the US has landed in Uganda , as Donald Trump’s administration pushes on with its strategy of expelling migrants to countries they have no ties to. The Uganda Law Society, which condemned the arrivals, dropped 12 people were on the flight, the first under an agreement Uganda signed with the US in August.

Why This Matters

No other details of the deportees, including their nationalities, have been made public. The US has already deported dozens of people to third countries. Other African countries that have accepted or agreed to accept deportees include Eswatini , Ghana, Rwanda and South Sudan which have received people from as far afield as Cuba, Jamaica, Yemen, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar.

Diplomats and experts are analyzing what this means for international relations.

The Bottom Line

The Uganda Law Society dropped it would be filing legal challenges to the deportations in Ugandan and regional courts. It criticised “an undignified, harrowing and dehumanising process that has reduced [the deported people] to little more than chattel, for the benefit of private interests on both sides of the Atlantic”.

What do you think about all this?