Trump administration weighs sending migrants to Libya and Rwanda, sources say

By Priscilla Alvarez and Kylie Atwood, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration has discussed with Libya and Rwanda the possibility of sending migrants who have criminal records and are in the United States to those two countries, according to multiple sources familiar with the talks.

The proposals mark a dramatic escalation in the administration’s push to deter people journeying to the United States and remove some of those already here to countries thousands of miles away, some of which have checkered pasts. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January directing top officials to facilitate international cooperation and agreements to send asylum seekers elsewhere.

In addition to sending migrants with criminal records, Trump officials are also hoping to enter formal negotiations with Libya to strike a so-called safe third country agreement, which would allow the US to send asylum seekers apprehended at the US border to Libya, according to one of the sources. No decision has been made yet, and it’s unclear which nationalities would be eligible.

A State Department spokesperson said they do not discuss the details of diplomatic communications. The spokesperson added that the department is “working globally to implement the Trump Administration’s immigration policies.”

CNN reached out to a representative for Libyan Gen. Saddam Haftar, who was in Washington for talks with officials this week, for comment.

Trump officials have previously tried to strike safe third country agreements with countries in the Western hemisphere to ease the burden on the US asylum system and stem migration to the United States. The Trump administration has also moved to expand cooperation to include working with countries to detain people removed from the United States, including most recently with El Salvador.

Multiple sources said the State Department is in talks with other countries about taking migrants, in addition to Libya and Rwanda.

“I say this unapologetically, we are actively searching for other countries to take people from third countries,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday.

“We are working with other countries to say, ‘We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries — will you do that as a favor to us?’ And the further away from America, the better, so they can’t come back across the border,” he said.

This week, senior State Department officials met with Libyan officials and discussed the proposal to send migrants to the North African country, according to one of the sources.

One piece of potential leverage for the US in any talks is the likelihood of another travel ban against visitors from several countries, which the Trump administration has teased but not yet released. Libya was included in the ban during Trump’s first term.

A United Nations report in 2024 pointed to years of human rights violations in Libya and concerns over a lack of accountability for the violations. Rights groups and U.N. agencies have also for years documented systematic abuse of migrants in Libya including allegations of forced labor, beatings, rapes and torture.

There have also been conversations as recently as this week between the US and Rwanda to advance a plan to use the country for third-party deportations of undocumented immigrants in the US, sources familiar with the matter said.

Rwanda and the US are discussing a possible agreement where Rwanda would accept migrants with criminal records who have served their sentence in the US already. The cost structure is still being finessed, though sources said it would likely be higher per person than the overall cost per person of deportees to El Salvador because Rwanda would not put the people in prison.

Rwanda would instead take them into society and provide some social support to them, such as a stipend and assistance with finding a job locally, sources said. The plan could take weeks to come together and would be used more on an ad hoc basis.

The conversation with Rwanda began in the early days of the Trump administration when there was a diplomatic note sent by the Trump administration to many countries around the world to gauge any interest in working on deportations of illegal migrants in the US. Rwanda signaled that they would be open to such conversations, sources said.

In March, one person was deported from the US to Rwanda, a transfer that was seen as a model that could work on a bigger scale, sources said. The person was a refugee from Iraq, Omar Abdulsattar Ameen.

The concept isn’t new for Rwanda, given an agreement that the country struck with the United Kingdom in 2022 to deport asylum seekers in the UK to Rwanda. But the plan was engulfed by legal troubles and last year it was discontinued by the newly elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who called the scheme a “gimmick.”

The removal of third-country migrants to Libya and Rwanda is likely to face legal challenges. Last month, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting people to countries other than their own without first providing notice and an opportunity to contest it.

This story has been updated with comment from the State Department.

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