By Abayomi Azikiwe
Since coming to office in his second non-consecutive term, United States President Donald Trump has unleashed thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to cities and rural areas ostensibly to remove undocumented migrants living and working inside the country.
In cities like Los Angeles, the White House has deployed Federalized National Guard units to assist ICE in setting up checkpoints and the conducting of raids to arrest people in their homes, neighborhoods and workplaces.
In response demonstrations are being held to demand the withdrawal of ICE and National Guard from the cities. Los Angeles, during a period of weeks, was also occupied by U.S. Marines.
After the occupation of Los Angeles, which was opposed by California Governor Gavin Newsome and Mayor Karen Bass, National Guard troops were sent into the nation’s capital of Washington under the guise of eradicating street crime. Although official statistics indicate that the level of criminal activity has been on the decline for years, the same racist tropes related to municipalities with large African American and Latin American populations were utilized to justify these illegal efforts by the Trump administration.
The U.S.-based corporate media has generated an image of “illegal immigration” which has targeted people from Mexico and other Latin American states as purportedly being involved in horrendous crimes against people who are “documented” in the U.S. In addition, migrants from the Caribbean island-nation of Haiti have been vilified as people who capture and devour pets. These outright lies are promoted by the White House and its supporters among the electorate.
Trump pledged during his campaign in 2024 that he would detain and deport 11 million undocumented people in the U.S. There has been large-scale recruitment of ICE agents as an atmosphere of fear grips communities where people from Latin American states reside.
Workplace raids are occurring on a regular basis. Numerous factories and farms are routinely invaded by ICE agents while workers are rounded up and detained.
Shackled Like Slaves
Hundreds of South Korean workers were arrested and detained after a raid on a production facility for Hyundai-LG batteries located in Ellabell, Georgia during early September. They were subjected to an ICE intervention when the administration claimed they were in violation of immigration laws.
As it was revealed in subsequent days after the raid, the workers were in the U.S. under special visas for skilled personnel. The raid took place after the South Korean government had pledged to invest billions of dollars in the U.S.
This incident prompted the government in Seoul to dispatch a high-ranking ministerial official to the U.S. to seek the immediate release of the workers. Yet, when the airplane was sent to airlift the South Koreans out of the U.S., they were delayed by the government in Washington.
Anger erupted in South Korea as political opposition parties and popular forces protested the detention of the workers. The workers were shown wearing handcuffs and shackles around their legs as was done to Africans during the Atlantic Slave Trade which kidnapped and imported tens of millions of people into the U.S. for more than two centuries.
African States Said to Have Accepted Migrants Deported from the U.S.
There are at least four governments on the African continent which have expressed a willingness to take in deported migrants from the U.S. even though they are not originally from these states. Such actions by the Trump administration represent a violation of U.S. and international laws. These governments are Eswatini, Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan.
The right-wing Central American government in El Salvador has been a dumping ground for people detained and deported by the U.S. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a sheet-metal apprentice, was arrested earlier this year and sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador where he was tortured. He was only released after a public outcry from the Sheet Metal Workers Union in the U.S. and efforts by his lawyers.
The Kingdom of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, is the last remaining absolute monarchy on the African continent. Located in Southern Africa bordering the Republic of South Africa, Eswatini is a state where mass demonstrations have been held over the last two years demanding the dissolution of monarchial rule and the institution of a democratic form of government.
A statement issued on July 16 by the Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS), the leading political force in the democratic movement inside the country, slammed the agreement to accept migrants from the U.S. The statement read in part:
“The CPS urges human rights organizations, regional bodies, and the international community to condemn this policy shift and advocate for the rights of deportees and host nations. The CPS stands in solidarity with affected individuals and calls for a global dialogue on ethical deportation practices that respect human dignity and international law. The CPS demands full transparency from both the U.S. government and the Mswati dictatorship regarding the terms of this deportation agreement. The CPS also calls for an independent investigation into the legal and ethical implications of this policy, ensuring that such practices do not become normalized in international relations, turning the world into chaos.”
In the East African state of Uganda, there is great trepidation over the announcements by the Trump administration that it had reached a deal with President Yoweri Museveni to accept migrants deported from the U.S. The government claims that it is willing only to accept a small number of migrants who do not have criminal records.
Opposition forces in Uganda have rejected the alleged scheme in a country which plays host to more than two million refugees, many of whom are from war zones in South Sudan and Sudan. When asked by media outlets for details on the migrant deportation plans, Ugandan officials said that the actual agreement had not been fully worked out.
The Republic of South Sudan, Africa’s newest state which came into existence after the partition of the Republic of Sudan in 2011, has accepted 8 migrants, only one of whom is a national of that country. The others are being held inside the country as part of a bilateral agreement between Juba and Washington. They are from Vietnam, Cuba, Myanmar, Laos and Mexico. According to recent reports, the Mexican national has been returned to his home country by the South Sudanese authorities.
The Republic of Rwanda is reported to have accepted a handful of deportees from the U.S. during August. They have only committed to taking 250 people who have been well vetted by the government.
A report published by the Guardian notes that:
“’The first group of seven vetted migrants arrived in Rwanda in mid-August … Three of the individuals have expressed a desire to return to their home countries, while four wish to stay and build lives in Rwanda,’ Yolande Makolo, a government spokesperson, said on Thursday.
Officials offered no information on the nationalities of the seven deportees. Rwanda said on 5 August it would accept up to 250 people from the U.S. and that it would have ‘the ability to approve each individual proposed for resettlement’.”
Consequently, the agreements to accept migrants from the U.S. does not amount to many people out of the millions which have been targeted by the Trump administration. As pressure mounts internally and internationally, the question of whether these commitments will be honored remains unclear.
African Union Rejects Third-Country Deportations from the U.S.
The African Union (AU) based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which represents 55-member states on the continent, has condemned the efforts by the U.S. to send migrants to their territories. Africans in and out of governments contend that the continent should not be a dumping ground for U.S. deportees.
A recent report on the attitude of most of the 1.4 billion people living in Africa says of the current crisis:
“What began as ‘discreet’ migration deals between Washington and a handful of African governments has erupted into widespread controversy, with the African Union denouncing the agreements as a policy that risks turning the continent into a ‘dumping zone’ for arbitrary expulsions. So far, four African nations: Rwanda, Uganda, South Sudan, and Eswatini, are known to have signed accords allowing the U.S. to transfer third-country migrants — people mostly with no ties to Africa — to their soil. Nigeria, which has declared it will not accept foreign deportees from the U.S., has accused Washington of using visa restrictions and tariff hikes to pressure African countries into accepting migrants, including ‘some straight out of prisons’.”
Therefore, the Trump program for third-country deportations of migrants should be opposed by people inside the U.S. along with others throughout the world. These racist and illegal policies are exposing the racist and fascist character of the current U.S. administration.
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