KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Twelve people deported from the U.S. arrived in Uganda on Thursday, the Uganda Law Society said, in the first known arrivals since Uganda and the U.S. signed a bilateral deal permitting the transfers.
The deportees were “effectively dumped in Uganda through an undignified, harrowing and dehumanizing process,” the law society said in a statement, adding that they arrived on a private charter flight.
The deportations are part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration as he seeks to deter migrants from entering the United States illegally and to deport those who already have done so, especially those with criminal records and including those who cannot easily be deported to their home country.
The U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security have defended third-country deportations as a means to quickly remove people who are in the U.S. illegally. The deportations have been the subject of several legal cases, both in the U.S. and in some countries where migrants are sent.
The deportations are controversial in part because the unwanted migrants can be sent to countries they have no cultural ties with. In August, for example, U.S. authorities briefly considered sending Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the high-profile subject of an ongoing migration dispute, to Uganda.
The U.S. has struck deals with at least seven African nations to take some migrants. Those countries range from the western African nation of Ghana to the southern African nation of Eswatini, which the U.S. paid $5.1 million to take up to 160 deportees, according to details of the deal released by the U.S. State Department.
It was not clear if Ugandan authorities were similarly paid.
The law society charged that the deportees were at the mercy of “unnamed, private interests on either side of the Atlantic,” adding that it was seeking legal remedy to stop what it described as an “international illegality.”
There were no details on the identities of the deportees, nor on their countries of origin.
Okello Oryem, a Ugandan state minister in charge of foreign affairs, said he was traveling and unaware of the arrivals.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, didn’t respond to questions about the welfare of the deportees.
Oryem told The Associated Press last month that Uganda was expecting “planeloads” of deportees from the U.S. He said the agreement with the U.S. was signed in the pan-African spirit and over humanitarian concern for Africans unwanted in a foreign land.
Ugandan authorities previously said their agreement with the U.S. relates to receiving deportees of African origin who do not have a criminal record.