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United States signed third-country deportation agreement with Burundi, setting no cap on transfers

On February 12, 2026, the United States and Burundi signed a Memorandum of Understanding permitting the U.S. to deport third-country nationals -- migrants who are not Burundian citizens -- to Burundi, after Burundi had previously declined to sign without additional U.S. funding for the International Organization for Migration. The agreement, negotiated by the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security, was not made public until it appeared on the State Department's website in June 2026; it sets no cap on the number of transfers and states Burundi will not accept people with violent-crime records. As of this entry's recording, no transfers under the agreement are known to have occurred.

Part of: Trump Administration Third-Country Deportation Program

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Washington, D.C.

Abuses documented

Actors

The United States and Burundi signed a Memorandum of Understanding on February 12, 2026, permitting the U.S. to deport third-country nationals to Burundi, after Burundi had previously declined to sign such an agreement without additional U.S. funding for the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The MOU, negotiated between the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security, was not disclosed publicly until it became available on the State Department's website in June 2026. According to the diplomatic notes underlying the agreement, there is no cap on the number of individuals who may be transferred, the mode of transfer has not yet been specified, and Burundi has said it will not accept individuals with violent-crime records.

Burundi is one of at least eleven countries -- also including Cabo Verde, the Central African Republic, Liberia, Libya, Rwanda, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Eswatini -- that have entered similar arrangements with the Trump administration to accept migrants who are not their own nationals, part of a broader third-country deportation program. As of this entry's recording, no transfers to Burundi are known to have occurred and no U.S. litigation over the arrangement has been identified. The Burundi deal came the same month the two countries separately signed a five-year, $129 million health-cooperation agreement covering HIV/AIDS and malaria programs, which the monitoring organization Third Country Deportation Watch said may have influenced the migration talks.

Why we recorded this

Due process requires that people facing removal from the United States receive individualized review before being sent to a country with no connection to their case, rather than being routed there simply because that country has agreed to take them. Here the United States signed a bilateral agreement with Burundi permitting an uncapped number of third-country removals, one of at least eleven such arrangements the Trump administration has built out across a broader third-country deportation program. This archive records when the government builds out the infrastructure for bypassing individualized due-process protections, even before any removal under a specific arrangement occurs.

Sources

  1. Burundi — Third Country Deportation Watch — Third Country Deportation Watch (Refugees International / Human Rights First) investigative accessed July 31, 2026
  2. US-Africa migrant deals ramp up as government transparency fails — Institute for Security Studies (ISS Africa) investigative accessed July 31, 2026

See also