Trump administration plans to deport migrants to Libya

The Trump administration is planning to deport migrants without legal status to Libya, a country long plagued by armed conflict, a U.S. official has confirmed to NPR.

The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the plans, but the news comes days after reports that Trump was eyeing the North African nation — as well as other African countries including Benin, Angola and Eswatini — as places to send deportees.

Earlier this week, Rwanda’s foreign minister confirmed that the East African country was in talks with Washington about the same issue. All these countries have notorious human rights records.

The deportations to Libya are expected to be carried out by the U.S. military. A second U.S. official not authorized to speak publicly about the plans told NPR’s Tom Bowman that the flight to Libya hadn’t started yet. The plans involve the use of a single aircraft that wouldn’t be full, the source said.

A civil war broke out in Libya in 2011, and the country is now effectively divided into two parts, each governed by different factions. Eastern Libya is controlled by military strongman, while Western Libya is run by a U.N.-backed government.

The country is itself a popular route for migrants from other parts of Africa who are trying to make it to Europe. The appalling treatment these migrants have received at the hands of Libya authorities has been widely condemned by rights groups. Neither the U.N.-backed Libyan government, or the military government in the west have responded to any of NPR’s requests for comment.

As part of its crackdown, the Trump administration has been seeking to deport migrants without legal status to third countries. Several Latin American countries have already taken in deportees, including El Salvador and Panama.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told lawmakers on Tuesday that she signed new agreements with El Salvador and Colombia during recent visits there.

The agreement with Colombia enables sharing of biometric information to identify people the Department of Homeland Security aims to remove from the U.S. A memo signed by the secretary in El Salvador allows for the sharing of fugitives’ criminal records.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters last month that the U.S. administration is “working with other countries to say, we want to send you some of the most despicable human beings … and the further away from America, the better, so they can’t come back across the borders.”

Tom Bowman and Ximena Bustillo contributed to this report.