--- title: "Liberia takes in people deported by the US, and its lawmakers want to know why" description: "Twenty people arrived on August 20, most of them nationals of Latin American countries with no connection to Liberia. About 1,200 are expected over twelve months. The arrangement rests on diplomatic notes rather than a treaty, and senators are asking under what authority it was made." category: "World" category_url: https://newsparlor.com/category/world author: "Marcus Reed" published: 2026-08-22T15:43:33-04:00 updated: 2026-08-22T15:43:33-04:00 canonical: https://newsparlor.com/article/liberia-takes-in-people-deported-by-the-us-and-its-lawmakers-want-to-know-why tags: ["liberia", "united-states", "deportation", "migration", "sovereignty"] --- # Liberia takes in people deported by the US, and its lawmakers want to know why Twenty people arrived on August 20, most of them nationals of Latin American countries with no connection to Liberia. About 1,200 are expected over twelve months. The arrangement rests on diplomatic notes rather than a treaty, and senators are asking under what authority it was made. The first twenty people deported from the United States to Liberia arrived on August 20. Around 1,200 are expected over the next twelve months. Most of those who have arrived are nationals of Latin American countries, including Venezuela and Cuba, [according to Al Jazeera](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/22/not-a-small-issue-people-deported-by-us-to-liberia-face-uncertain-future). They are not Liberian. That is the fact the whole story turns on. ## Third-country removal Deporting someone to their own country is an ordinary immigration act. Sending them to a third country that has agreed to receive them is a different thing, and it has become an increasingly common instrument for states that cannot return people to their countries of origin, whether because those countries refuse to take them or because sending them there would be unlawful. The people on this flight have no prior connection to Liberia. Justice Minister Natu Oswald Tweh said: "Most of them are people who had immigration violations and offences." Al Jazeera reports, citing Reuters and without independently confirming it, that five people refused to leave the plane and were taken to Equatorial Guinea instead. ## The paperwork, and what is missing from it The arrangement rests on diplomatic notes exchanged on September 4 and September 10, with the text appearing on the US State Department's website in March 2026. An exchange of notes is a real instrument in international law and it is also the lightest one available. It does not go through a legislature. It can be concluded and, in practice, altered by officials. Which is precisely the objection Liberian lawmakers are raising. Senator Samuel Kogar of Nimba County asked: "Was this arrangement brought before both Houses of the Legislature and approved by the required majority? If not, then under what legal authority was this agreement made?" He added: "This is not a small issue. We are talking about our sovereignty, our laws, our national security, and the responsibility we have to the Liberian people." Representative Anthony F Williams put the constitutional point directly: "No agreement that borders on the national security of this country, the sovereignty of the country, can just be entered into by the executive branch alone." ## What Liberia received The reporting sets out a sequence of American measures around the same period. On December 9, 2025, a five-year health memorandum worth $124 million was signed. Visitor visas for Liberians were extended from twelve months to thirty-six. In January 2026 migrant visas for Liberians were halted. In 2026 the United States awarded Liberia $5 million for migration management. The report does not state that these were payment for accepting deportees, and neither do we. What can be said is that they are the surrounding facts, they are close together in time, and Liberian legislators are entitled to ask about the relationship. ## The unanswered question Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah said: "Liberia's gesture is entirely humanitarian and in keeping with the country's longstanding traditions." Liberia was founded in the nineteenth century as a settlement for freed people from the United States, and the appeal to that history is not an accident. But humanitarian framing does not answer the practical question, which is what legal status these people now hold. They are described as guests of the Republic. That is not a category in immigration law. It does not say whether they may work, whether they may leave, whether they can be removed again, or what happens when the twelve months are up and 1,200 people are living in a country of which none is a citizen. No screening criteria have been published, and we could not establish where the arrivals are being housed or who is paying for it. This account comes from a single publication. We have not read the diplomatic notes, and we have not been able to obtain a US government statement. ## Sources - ['Not a small issue': People deported by US to Liberia face uncertain future](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/22/not-a-small-issue-people-deported-by-us-to-liberia-face-uncertain-future)