(AFP) – The United States has started deporting migrants to a sparsely populated archipelago in the tropical Pacific, the island nation of Palau told AFP on Wednesday. Washington has accelerated efforts to expel undocumented migrants and asylum seekers under US President Donald Trump, proposing to resettle them in unlikely nations such as Uganda, El Salvador, and Rwanda.
One of the smallest countries in the world by population, Palau has agreed to take up to 75 deportees under a contentious deal it struck in December. “We welcomed our first individual at the airport in late May, brought him to his temporary residence and helped him connect his phone and settle in,” the Palau president’s office said in a statement to AFP. While unwanted migrants are meant to live and work in these new countries, it appears the deportee had no plans of staying in Palau. “After about two weeks he decided not to remain,” the Palau president’s office said. Basic details about the man, including why he was deported and where he went after Palau, remain a mystery.
The International Organisation for Migration said it had met with the man during his brief stay in Palau. “The individual declined to avail of IOM’s assistance,” a spokeswoman for the UN body told AFP. Under the memorandum of understanding signed in December, Palau agreed to resettle up to 75 deportees from the United States. All deportees would need to have a clean criminal record, and Palau would have the final veto over who it accepted.
In exchange, the United States would pay Palau $7.5 million to meet “public service and infrastructure needs.” But the deal proved highly contentious, with lawmakers in Palau’s senate banding together in a failed legal attempt to block the deportations. With some 20,000 people spread across hundreds of volcanic isles and coral atolls, Palau is by population one of the smallest countries in the world.
Scattered about 800 kilometres (500 miles) east of the Philippines, it has long been one of the United States’ closest allies in the Pacific. Palau President Surangel Whipps has overseen the expansion of US military interests since winning power in 2020. He has backed a proposal to build a long-range US radar outpost in Palau. Palau gained independence in 1994 but allows the US military to use its territory under a longstanding “Compact of Free Association” agreement. In return, the United States gives Palau hundreds of millions of dollars in budgetary support and assumes responsibility for its national defence.
– Steven TRASK
© 2024 AFP
