Sierra Leone Receives First U.S. Deportees Under Expanded Immigration Policy

A chartered Boeing flight carrying nine West African migrants landed at Sierra Leone's international airport outside Freetown on Wednesday morning. The group consisted of seven men and two women. Five were from Ghana, two from Guinea, and one each from Nigeria and Senegal, officials told the BBC.

The deportees were escorted from the airport in a white van. One deportee resisted leaving the plane and was physically removed. Kenvah Solutions, the private company housing the migrants, told the BBC the group would stay at its facilities for two weeks before being sent to their home countries.

Kabba told Reuters that Sierra Leone had agreed to accept up to 300 people a year expelled by the United States. He added that new arrivals must originally come from member states of Ecowas, West Africa's economic bloc. Under Ecowas agreements, citizens of one member country can stay elsewhere in the bloc for up to 90 days.

The United States has already sent deportees to several other African countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana and South Sudan.

Dozens of migrants have been flown to third countries since President Donald Trump came to power in January last year. The mass deportation of illegal migrants was a key part of his campaign for re-election. According to a minority report from the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Trump administration has "likely" spent more than $40m in third-country deportations up to January 2026, although the total cost is "unknown".

The authorities in Sierra Leone have not said what they have received in return for accepting the deportees.

“We agreed with [the US] that West African nationals were acceptable. All our fellow West African nationals don't need visas to come to our country.”