A growing number of U.S. congressional Democrats have demanded a formal investigation into payments allegedly made by President Donald Trump’s administration to Equatorial Guinea as part of a secretive deportation arrangement. Reports from Washington suggest that millions of dollars were transferred to the small Central African nation in exchange for its willingness to receive hundreds of African migrants deported from the United States, many of whom had no prior links to the country.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are pressing the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department to provide transparency on the deal, which they say bypassed congressional oversight and raises concerns about human rights compliance. Preliminary findings indicate that some deportees were sent to detention centers upon arrival, sparking outrage among humanitarian organizations and the United Nations Refugee Agency, which has called for immediate clarification on the legality of the transfers.
Analysts note that the alleged payments reflect the Trump administration’s increasingly transactional approach to migration control, expanding its deportation reach to countries with little prior diplomatic engagement with Washington. The revelation could ignite renewed debate over the moral and legal boundaries of the U.S. deportation system, especially as the administration faces scrutiny for its handling of immigration across Africa and Latin America.
