The US has deported five people it has described as “criminal illegal aliens” to our neighbours in the east, Eswatini. The five are from Vietnam, Laos, Jamaica, Cuba and Yemen. Their deportation to Africa’s last absolute monarchy is part of what the US calls “third country removals”, which were cleared by the US Supreme Court earlier this month.
The deportees landed in Eswatini on Tuesday, and their deportation was announced by the US Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. McLaughlin said these deportees, who had been in prison for a range of serious crimes, were “so uniquely barbaric” that their own countries had refused to take them back. So why send them to Africa? It’s giving Australia 2.0.
Eswatini has, however, said that it would work with the US government and the International Organisation for Migration to repatriate the deportees, who are currently in a correctional facility, to their home countries.
In early July, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could deport eight migrants to South Sudan. Only one of the eight was actually from South Sudan. Their families allegedly haven’t heard from them since. McLaughlin called the South Sudan move “a win for the rule of law, safety and security of the American people.”🙄
It’s worth noting that the Eswatini monarchy has been accused of terrible human rights abuses. King Mswati III has been in power since 1986 and lives a lavish lifestyle with his eleven wives and forty-five children, while his citizens starve. The Eswatini government has shut down any form of unrest with violence and at times, media blackouts. Its authorities have declined to say what the US offered it in exchange. Here’s hoping that that’s the only plane that lands so close to us here in South Africa. 👀
