KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) Uganda has reached an agreement with the United States to receive deported migrants, provided the deportees don’t have criminal backgrounds and aren’t unaccompanied minors, officials stated on Thursday.
The Ugandan foreign affairs ministry mentioned in a statement that the “two parties are working out the detailed modalities on how the agreement shall be implemented.”
Uganda also expressed a preference that those brought into the country should be of African nationalities.
It was not clear if the agreement had been signed but the ministry statement said it had been “concluded.”
International Relations Minister Henry Okello Oryem informed The Associated Press that although Uganda is internationally recognized for its generous refugee policy, there are boundaries.
And he questioned why the country would take people rejected by their own countries.
“We are talking about cartels: people who are unwanted in their own countries. How can we integrate them into local communities in Uganda?” he asked.
He noted that the government is currently negotiating “visas, tariffs, sanctions, and related matters, excluding unapproved individuals from the U.S. That would be unfair to Ugandans.”
In July, the U.S. deported five men with criminal backgrounds to the southern African kingdom of Eswatini and sent eight more to South Sudan.
