• Eswatini received $5.1M from U.S. for accepting foreign deportees
  

• Up to 160 migrants expected; first arrivals came from five countries
  

• Deal supports U.S. deportation policy; Eswatini joins other African host nations

Eswatini’s government confirmed on Tuesday, November 18, 2025, that it had received $5.1 million from the United States under an agreement to accept foreign nationals deported by the Trump administration. Finance Minister Neal Rijkenberg told local media that the payment had been made.

The full terms of the deal have not been disclosed. However, a press release issued by Human Rights Watch in September said the funding is meant to strengthen Eswatini’s border and migration-management capacity. The country is expected to receive up to 160 people and has already taken in an initial group of five from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam, and Yemen.

The arrangement forms part of the Trump administration’s tightened immigration policy, which it has described as the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, involving transfers of migrants to third countries such as Panama, El Salvador, and South Sudan.

Eswatini joins several African countries, including Rwanda, Uganda, and Ghana, that have agreed to receive U.S. deportees. Others, including Nigeria, have rejected similar proposals.

Eswatini, a landlocked nation of 1.2 million people situated between South Africa and Mozambique, has an economy dominated by services, which make up just over half of national output according to the World Bank. Economic growth slowed to 3% in 2024, down from 3.5% the previous year.

Lydie Mobio