The Trump administration earlier this year urged the Ukrainian government to accept an unspecified number of U.S. deportees who are citizens of other countries, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post, an extraordinary request of a nation at war and dependent on American military and financial support for its survival.
Trump team urged Ukraine to take U.S. deportees amid war, documents show
The extraordinary request illustrates the administration’s aggressive bid to identify willing partners who will accept people expelled by the U.S.
The documents do not indicate how officials in Kyiv responded to the late-January proposal, relayed by a senior U.S. diplomat, that called for sending third-country nationals to Ukraine amid Russia’s deadly, devastating invasion — and despite the absence of a functioning airport there b continual air attacks. A Ukrainian diplomat informed the U.S. Embassy only that her government would offer a response once it formulated a position, according to the documents, which show that similar proposals were issued to a number of other countries around the same date.
Ukraine has not accepted any third-party nationals from the United States, and there is no indication that Kyiv seriously considered the American proposal. Two Ukrainian officials familiar with the matter, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss interactions with the Trump administration, said the topic never reached the government’s highest level. One of the officials said he was unaware of any “political demands” made by the United States regarding its desire for Ukraine to take in deportees.
The State Department said in a statement that “ongoing engagement with foreign governments” was “vital to deterring illegal and mass migration and securing our borders.” The agency referred questions about the Ukraine proposal to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond to requests for comment.
These documents and others that The Post reviewed offer new insight into President Donald Trump’s attempt to dramatically expand deportations as he seeks to upend U.S. immigration policy using unorthodox means. Dated January to May, they show that since taking office his administration has worked aggressively, and often out of public view, to increase the number of nations that will accept third-country nationals from the U.S., routinely dangling incentives or leveraging the prospect of improved relations with Washington in pursuing its objectives.
A few governments in Latin America, including El Salvador, Mexico, Costa Rica and Panama, have agreed to receive deportees who are not their citizens. The Trump administration courted some of these countries, granting Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele a White House visit and paying his government millions of dollars to house U.S. deportees in a notorious prison. Others it has bullied with tariff threats and other measures — including, in the case of Panama, threats to retake the Panama Canal.
Yael Schacher, director for the Americas and Europe at the humanitarian organization Refugees International, said it appears the Trump administration is targeting governments “it knows want to curry favor and are under pressure.”
Both before and after last year’s election, Trump’s rhetoric repeatedly signaled his willingness to leverage Ukraine’s reliance on U.S. military aid, pronouncements that appeared to grow more brash once he entered office in January. Tensions peaked in late February, with a remarkable Oval Office argument between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, cooling slightly only after Kyiv conceded to some of the administration’s demands, including an agreement granting U.S. access to Ukraine’s critical mineral resources.
Schacher, an immigration historian, also noted the administration’s efforts to woo Rwanda — an African nation with a poor human rights record that is also at the center of U.S.-led efforts to end a long-running conflict. Its leaders have agreed to take in third-country nationals deported by the U.S.
Previous U.S. governments have worked with foreign nations to receive third-country nationals, Schacher said, “but the extent of this outreach is new.”
“What’s unusual,” she added, “is the variety of arrangements, their ad hoc nature, their clear quid pro quos and the amount of money the administration will put behind them.”
Washington’s outreach to Kyiv came in the first days of the new administration, as the president continued to tout his ambitious goal of brokering a peace deal while expressing deep misgivings about the vast sums of assistance that his predecessor, President Joe Biden, had provided to Ukraine. The new U.S. administration also considered ending some Biden-era provisions that allowed Ukrainian citizens to stay in the United States.
Documents reviewed by The Post record a Ukrainian diplomat telling U.S. counterparts that while Ukraine had a “solid track record of accepting the return of its citizens when removed by the United States,” the government in Kyiv faces the prevailing reality of “wartime exigencies.”
Former U.S. officials said the U.S.-Ukraine dialogue about deportations was unusual and not part of any routine diplomatic correspondence.
In the case of Rwanda, the U.S. made a one-time payment of $100,000 to the Rwandan government to take in an Iraqi deportee last month, with the African nation agreeing to take in an additional 10 deportees of various nationalities as part of a “durable program” for accepting other removals, according to the documents seen by The Post. Rwanda’s leaders have appeared eager to show Washington that they can “advance the America First agenda,” a U.S. official observed in one document, a reference to Trump’s foreign policy approach.
Details of the Rwandan deportation agreement were first reported by independent journalist Marisa Kabas.
Though the number of third-party nationals that could be deported to Rwanda is small under the current agreement, there are indications it could grow. In an interview with Rwandan television on Sunday, Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe said the conversations were only in the “initial phases.”
Some of the Trump administration’s negotiations have focused on using countries as logistical points in the deportations of third-country nationals. In discussions with Uzbekistan, for instance, documents from early March show that U.S. officials sought to use the former Soviet state as a transit point for Russian and Belarusian deportees as direct flights to and from the United States were severed amid tensions arising in part from the war in Ukraine.
This document, drafted by the U.S. government, states that an Uzbek official did not reject the idea immediately. A U.S. official, acknowledging that the situation could create political sensitivities, proposed certain “concrete incentives,” such as a call between the two countries’ leaders or another high-level engagement, to get a deal done, the document shows.
The Uzbek Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
Last week, Uzbekistan received over 100 deportees from the United States, including Uzbeks as well as citizens of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, according to a statement by the DHS. The State Department said in a statement that “there were no Russians or Belarusians on the flight” and that the Kyrgyz and Kazakh nationals “transited to their home countries.”
Documents from Tuesday morning showed U.S. officials praising Uzbekistan’s government for the specially chartered deportation flight, which they said included 19 Kazakh and 20 Kyrgyz citizens. U.S. officials noted that the Uzbek government was “eager to remain on our good side.”
A U.S. official wrote in the documents that the United States might need to “tread lightly” when pushing Uzbekistan to do more, adding that including more third-country nationals “may be a bridge too far” for its government and warning that the program could be used by “our adversaries, especially China and Russia,” to spoil the “deepening bilateral partnership.”
Other documents reviewed by The Post show that U.S. officials also spoke to the government of Georgia about taking in third-country nationals within the first few weeks of Trump’s return to Washington. They do not indicate whether those talks were conclusive.
O’Grady reported from Kyiv.