Rwanda agrees to take up to 250 migrants deported from U.S.

Rwanda has signed a June accord to accept as many as 250 people deported from the United States, officials in Kigali said on Tuesday, marking Washington’s first third-country removal pact with the East African nation.

Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo said the agreement was rooted in a national experience of displacement, adding that every approved migrant would receive training, healthcare and housing “to jump-start their lives in one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies.”

Kigali will vet each case and has already received an initial U.S. list of 10 names, a senior official told Reuters. Those still serving sentences or convicted of child sex offences will be rejected, and migrants will be free to leave Rwanda once admitted.

The United States will fund the programme through an undisclosed grant finalised last month, and the two sides can expand the cap above 250 by mutual consent, the official added.

President Donald Trump, who has vowed to deport millions of undocumented migrants, has used third-country removals before, sending more than 200 Venezuelans with gang links to El Salvador in March. In June the Supreme Court allowed such transfers without full asylum hearings, although the policy faces a legal challenge in Boston federal court.

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