Twelve people deported from the United States arrived in Uganda on Thursday, the Uganda Law Society said, in what appeared to be the first known arrivals since Uganda and the United States signed a bilateral agreement allowing such transfers.
The law society said the deportees arrived on a private charter flight. It said they were “effectively dumped in Uganda through an undignified, harrowing and dehumanizing process,” and that it was seeking legal action to stop what it described as an “international illegality.”
The U.S. State Department and Department of Homeland Security have defended third-country deportations as a way to quickly remove people in the country illegally. The policy has faced legal challenges in the United States and in some destination countries.
There were no details on the deportees’ identities or countries of origin.
The United States has reached agreements with at least seven African countries to accept some deportees. Those countries include Ghana and Eswatini. The U.S. State Department said it paid Eswatini $5.1 million to accept up to 160 deportees under a deal whose details it released.
It was not clear whether Ugandan authorities were similarly paid.
Okello Oryem, Uganda’s state minister for foreign affairs, said he was traveling and was unaware of the arrivals. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Kampala did not respond to questions about the deportees’ welfare.
Last month, Oryem told The Associated Press that Uganda was expecting “planeloads” of deportees from the United States. He said the agreement was signed in a pan-African spirit and out of humanitarian concern for Africans unwanted in a foreign country.
Ugandan authorities previously said the agreement applied to deportees of African origin who did not have criminal records. In August, U.S. authorities briefly considered sending Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the subject of an ongoing migration dispute, to Uganda.