A view shows buildings behind a street of the Gombe area in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo December 30, 2023. REUTERS/Justin Makangara/File Photo
A group of migrants believed to be Latin Americans, touched down in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the early hours of Friday, becoming the first deportees transferred to the Central African nation under a bilateral removal agreement struck between Washington and Kinshasa earlier this month — even as U.S. judges scrambled to block some of the removals at the last minute.
The deportees, nationals of Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, arrived at the Congolese capital’s airport shortly after midnight local time, flight tracking data confirmed. Upon landing, Congolese officials handed them seven-day visas permitting free movement within the country, which could be extended for up to three months. In a striking disclosure, the migrants were told they were eligible to apply for asylum in Congo — though officials actively discouraged them from doing so, cautioning that the country was dangerous.
“The flight was very calm. They treated us well and gave us enough food,” said a Colombian woman in the group, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing safety concerns. “It was very long, around 26 or 27 hours.”
The aircraft departed from Alexandria, Louisiana, making stopovers in Dakar, Senegal, and Accra, Ghana, before finally landing in Kinshasa, according to tracking data. The Colombian migrant put the group’s size at 16 — nine men and seven women — though an airport source put it at 15.
The discrepancy may be explained by eleventh-hour legal interventions. Alma David, a U.S.-based attorney representing one of the migrants, said federal judges had issued emergency halts in at least three cases before the flight departed. “She said she was aware of at least three cases in which judges halted removals,” reflecting a broader pattern of legal challenges that has repeatedly complicated the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation agenda.
The agreement between the United States and Congo, announced on April 5, marks an unprecedented arrangement in which Kinshasa agrees to receive so-called third-country deportees — migrants who are not Congolese nationals. How many people could ultimately be removed under the deal remains unclear.
The deportation pact does not exist in isolation. It forms part of a broader diplomatic architecture being constructed between Washington and Kinshasa, which also includes a U.S.-brokered peace initiative aimed at ending the devastating conflict in eastern Congo, where Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands more. Separately, the two governments have signed a strategic partnership granting the United States preferential access to Congo’s vast reserves of critical minerals — resources increasingly vital to global technology supply chains.
Critics and human rights observers are likely to scrutinize the arrangement closely. Congo remains one of the world’s most volatile nations, grappling with chronic insecurity, mass internal displacement and a fragile asylum infrastructure ill-equipped to absorb additional vulnerable populations. The irony of officials simultaneously offering asylum and warning against pursuing it underscores the precariousness of the situation facing the newly arrived deportees.
Congo’s interior ministry and a spokesperson for the Congolese presidency had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
By: Andrews Kwesi Yeboah