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DR Congo strikes deal to accept US deportees

Apr 6, 2026, 8:54am EDT
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A US migrant deportation flight.
US Dept. of Defense photo by Senior Airman Devlin Bishop/Getty Images

DR Congo struck a deal with the US to receive “third-country” deportees, days after Uganda received eight people under a similar deal.

The agreements are part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, though rights groups and legal scholars have criticized the deals, questioning whether Washington can send individuals to countries they are not nationals of — and have sometimes never even been to — against their will.

Several African countries, including Cameroon, Equatorial ​Guinea, Eswatini, and Ghana have accepted deportees from the US in recent months. It remains unclear what, if anything, DR Congo would receive in exchange for the deportation agreement in deals whose terms have typically been opaque.

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