Eswatini takes two more U.S. deportees under a $5 million deal
The pair, described as Latin American third-country nationals, landed on Thursday as the fifth batch since July 2025. Mbabane has agreed to accept 160 people. Some earlier arrivals have already left for home.
Mbabane3 min read
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Two migrants deported from the United States arrived in Eswatini on Thursday under a third-country agreement that the kingdom signed with Washington. A government statement that night called them third-party nationals from Latin America. It did not name them, list exact nationalities, or say how long they would stay.
Sources told AFP the pair were collected at King Mswati III International Airport around 4 p.m. local time and were to be processed on Friday. One source said they looked startled and asked which country they had reached and where it was. That detail is small and human, and it is also the point of the policy. People are being flown to a state they cannot place on a map.
They are the fifth group sent from the United States since the first flight in July 2025. AFP put the running total at 32 people. Eswatini confirmed last year that it had received about $5.1 million to accept up to 160 deportees. The money was described as support for border and migration systems. At $5.1 million for 160 seats, the headline rate is about $32,000 a person before any prison, food or ticket costs that Mbabane then carries.
A holding country, not a home
Mbabane says the people are in transit. The official line is that they should move on to their countries of origin. Some already have. A Jamaican man went home in September 2025. A Cambodian man was released in March 2026 after five months in a maximum-security prison and put on a path to repatriation.
Others have refused. In July, Jamaica said two of three of its citizens sent to Eswatini had formally declined offers to go back to the Caribbean. That leaves the kingdom holding people who are not Swazi, not American, and not willing to board the next plane. A transit model that depends on voluntary onward travel breaks as soon as the passenger says no.
Rights groups have criticised the arrangement. Earlier deportees were held at Matsapha Correctional Complex near Mbabane. A photograph circulated last year showed the prison from outside. A small landlocked monarchy with limited asylum machinery is being asked to warehouse people whose cases the United States has already closed.
A wider third-country network
Eswatini is one of several African states that have accepted U.S. deportees who are not their own nationals. Advocates say the Trump administration has used often-secret deals to send thousands of people to about two dozen countries that are not their homes. The political logic in Washington is simple. It moves people off U.S. soil fast. The legal and practical logic in Mbabane is thinner. A $5 million payment does not create consular networks for Latin American and Asian cases.
Third-country removal also shifts the hard questions. If a deportee asks for protection, which state hears the claim? If a home government will not issue papers, who pays for the next year in Matsapha? Jamaica's refusal cases show that those questions are already live. They will become louder if the next batches push the headcount toward the 160 cap.
The latest pair add two more names, still unpublished, to a list that already includes Jamaicans who will not leave and a Cambodian who sat in a maximum-security wing for five months. The next fact to watch is whether these two are processed out toward a home government or added to the group that stays because no one else will take them.
Until Mbabane publishes nationalities and a timetable, the only confirmed numbers are the ones already on paper: two new arrivals, a fifth flight, a $5.1 million contract and a cap of 160.
