Nine African migrants deported from the U.S. arrived in Cameroon under an agreement between the two countries, one of their lawyers said on Thursday, according to LETA citing AFP.
The deported migrants, arriving from Ghana, Angola, Ethiopia, and the Republic of Congo, landed on Wednesday.
Cameroon is one of several African countries that have agreed in recent months to participate in a scheme allowing the U.S. to send illegal immigrants to third countries if there are obstacles to their return to their country of origin.
Six women and three men, who arrived in Cameroon on Wednesday, came on a flight that marked the third such occurrence since January. Prior to this, the U.S. had deported 17 migrants to Cameroon.
The New York Times reported that Cameroon receives $30 million from the U.S. for participating in this migrant reception scheme.
Similar agreements have been made with the U.S. by Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Rwanda, South Sudan, Eswatini, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The U.S. judicial system does not allow the deportation of most of these migrants to their countries of origin due to safety concerns, so they are sent to a third country, which can then deport them further.
Of the 17 migrants previously deported from the U.S. to Cameroon, four have already been sent back to their countries of origin — Morocco, Angola, and Senegal. The remaining 13 will be able to apply for asylum in Cameroon if they wish.
U.S. courts have found the safety concerns of two Moroccan women to be valid in the event of their return to Morocco. After being sent from Cameroon to Morocco, they are living there in hiding, reported a Cameroonian lawyer.
