Nine of the 15 migrants deported from the United States to the Democratic Republic of Congo in April have returned to their home countries, Congo’s government, one migrant and her lawyer said Friday.
The group arrived in Congo on April 17 under a bilateral agreement announced two weeks earlier between Kinshasa and the Trump administration, allowing DR Congo to receive third-country deportees from the US.
Congo’s government said in a statement that “more than half” of the migrants had since returned to their countries of origin, adding that the remaining deportees would leave “shortly.”
A Colombian migrant still in Kinshasa and her lawyer told Reuters that nine people had returned home, including four Peruvians and five Colombians. They said the six remaining migrants included three Colombians and three Ecuadorians.
The Congolese government did not say whether the returns were voluntary.
The Colombian migrant said seven of the returnees travelled with assistance from the International Organization for Migration, a UN agency, while two others left on their own.
Reuters previously reported that several of the migrants had been granted legal protection in the US after judges found they were more likely than not to face persecution if returned. It was not immediately clear whether any of the nine returnees had received such protection.
Similar US deportation arrangements with other countries have drawn criticism from legal experts and rights groups, who have questioned the legal basis for transferring deportees to countries where they are not citizens and raised concerns over their treatment after removal.