Bahamas setback: What’s Trump’s plan to expel migrants to third countries?
A plan to take immigrants from other nations who have been deported by the United States was rejected by the Bahamas on Thursday.
The incoming US administration reportedly proposed the plan to deport immigrants to nations like the Bahamas.
Republican President-elect Trump built his campaign around the promise of carrying out the “largest deportation operation” in US history.
Here is more about the plan:
What is Trump’s plan?
According to a report from NBC News on Thursday, Trump’s team has a list of nations where they can send deported people if their home nations won’t accept them, citing three unnamed sources.
The outlet reported that, in addition to the Bahamas, Trump is considering the neighbouring Turks and Caicos Islands, as well as Panama and Grenada.
Further details, such as whether the immigrants would be allowed to work if they enter such a , third country, are not known yet, NBC reported. Additionally, it is unknown what kind of economic or diplomatic pressure Trump will apply to foreign nations in accepting immigrants.
Trump has previously stated that he is willing to use the military to carry out mass deportations and declare a state of emergency.
The Bahamas’ government “reviewed and firmly rejected” the plan, according to Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis in a statement released on Thursday.
According to Arlington Musgrove, the minister of immigration and border services for the island nation’s neighboring the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands won’t welcome deported immigrants, according to the Miami Herald.
Joe Biden, the Democrat president, had previously implemented a similar immigration measure. According to the Wall Street Journal, he began negotiations with Suriname in 2022 to accept Afghan refugees who had broken the US’s entry requirements. According to the Miami Herald, Suriname recently agreed to accept those refugees.
Is this similar to the UK’s Rwanda plan?
The United Kingdom announced that Rwandans seeking asylum in the UK would receive notification in April 2022 under the Conservative Party government.
In November 2023, the UK Supreme Court declared the plan unlawful, citing safety concerns. However, the UK government signed a new treaty with Rwanda, adding security safeguards. The Safety of Rwanda Act became law in April of this year after the Treaty was ratified.
The Labour Party, however, has since clinched the UK election victory and canceled the Rwandan initiative.
Are there other precedents?
As a result of a partnership with the European Union, Turkey has since 2016 welcomed Syrian refugees as part of its strategy to stop the Middle Eastern nation’s war from famine.
15 EU member states demanded in May this year that the bloc enact a more stringent asylum regime to facilitate the movement of asylum seekers to third countries.
These countries included Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.
Italy and Albania signed a five-year agreement in February to transfer asylum seekers from “safe” nations to Albanian detention facilities. After an Italian court rejected the government’s request to detain them in Albania, seven asylum seekers from Bangladesh and Egypt were taken to Italy in November.
Why is Trump’s plan controversial?
Trump’s deportation plan aims to transport people to nations away from their immediate families.
Many foreign governments would need to co-operate with a mass deportation plan.
Additionally, many attorneys and activists contend that it is against international law to turn away asylum seekers who are fleeing violence or persecution.
During Trump’s first term, he carried out a similar measure between 2019 and 2020, placing immigrants on a plane to Guatemala. This move, smaller in scale than Trump’s current plan,  , was halted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The US civil rights nonprofit, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and other pro-immigrant rights groups sued Trump over this plan. Federal court is still hearing the case.
In the first Trump administration, an ACLU lawyer, Lee Gelernt, told NBC, “We sued over this type of policy because it was against the law and put asylum seekers in grave danger.”
Source: Aljazeera
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