Trump administration deported some migrants at a cost of $1 million each, Democratic report says

By Jennifer Hansler, Kylie Atwood, Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration has spent more than $30 million to send migrants to far-flung countries that are not their own, including, in a few instances, paying over $1 million a person, a new report from the Democratic chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee says.

In other cases, the report alleges, the administration paid to deport the migrants to a third country, only to pay again to return them to their home country.

The report, released Friday, says that the administration has inked the high-cost deals for the return of “relatively small numbers of third country nationals.”

The report, led by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, offers one of the most comprehensive looks at the administration’s third-country deportation agreements, following criticism the government has been vague about the details of those deals.

The Trump administration has pursued the deals as part of its aggressive deportation agenda, arguing that the immigrants deported to third countries would not have been accepted by their home countries. Frosty diplomatic relations have historically made it difficult for the US to return certain nationals to their countries of origin.

Under the agreements, countries agree – often for money, political favor, or both – to accept immigrants from the US who are not citizens of those countries. Many of the efforts to deport these third country nationals have been met with legal challenges.

According to the report, the administration has an agreement with or has sent third country nationals to more than 20 countries and is pursuing deals with dozens more.

The minority report was also signed by Sens. Chris Coons, Tim Kaine, Tammy Duckworth, Jacky Rosen, and Chris Van Hollen. It notes that the “the total costs of the Trump Administration’s third country deportations through January 2026 are unknown but are likely upward of $40 million.”

Deals with five governments – Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, El Salvador, Eswatini, and Palau – have cost more than $32 million, with much of that funding being provided “as lump sum payments, often before any third country nationals arrived,” according to the report.

The five countries that received the million-dollar payments have collectively only received about 300 third country nationals from the US.

The report notes that the administration often uses high-cost military aircraft to deport migrants, even for flights with only a small number of people.

“The Trump Administration spent an estimated more than $7.2 million on third country deportation flights as of January 2026 to at least ten countries, with actual costs likely far higher,” the report states.

The report says it is based “on a review of agreements through January 2026, staff travel to relevant countries and meetings and communication with U.S. officials, foreign government officials, human rights organizations, deportees and attorneys.”

A Democratic committee aide said they raised a number of questions to the administration in limited engagements. Although the administration provided information in some cases, they have not briefed the committee on the agreements writ large, the aide said.

CNN has reached out to the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security for comment.

‘The point is to scare people’

And “as of January 2026, more than eighty percent of the migrants sent to third countries the U.S. paid to take them in have already returned to their country of origin, or are in the process of doing so,” the report alleges.

Of the five countries that received the million-dollar payments of third-country nationals, El Salvador received the most deported people. Around 250 were sent to that country, which received a $4.76 million grant to imprison the deportees, who the administration alleged had ties to criminal organization Tren de Aragua. The alleged ties have been refuted by family members and in litigation. CNN reported last April that the grant was “to provide funds to be used by Salvadoran law enforcement and corrections agencies for its law enforcement needs, which include costs of detaining the 238 TDA members recently deported to El Salvador,” according to an internal document.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to begin implementing his requirement that it give Venezuelans unlawfully deported to El Salvador last year under the Alien Enemies Act a chance to challenge their removal, including by bringing at least some of them back to the US for court proceedings.

However, only 51 people were sent to the other four countries as of January 2026, according to the report. Rwanda, which allegedly received $7.5 million from the US government, only took seven third country nationals, meaning each deported national cost more than $1 million in US taxpayer money, according to the report.

Palau has not received any third country nationals, although the report says they received a payment of $7.5 million from the administration. Efforts to pressure the Palau government to take the third country nationals met heavy pushback from locals.

When it comes to the distant countries of Palau and Eswatini, a US official reportedly told the committee that “the point is that the Administration can threaten people that they will literally be dropped in the middle of nowhere.”

“The point is to scare people,” the official said.

According to the report, a US official privately told committee staff that the administration “is sometimes paying the country to take people, flying them there and then paying to take them to their home country.”

In one such instance, a Mexican national was deported from the US to South Sudan, only to be flown back to Mexico, the report says.

In another instance, a Jamaican who had court orders to return to their home country was sent to Eswatini – which the report says came at an estimated cost of more than $181,000 – only to then be flown back to Jamacia weeks later.

The report makes the case that the administration is carrying out these deportations at great cost to US taxpayers while “expending political capital in its bilateral relationships that could instead be used to advance pressing U.S. national security interests.”

Lawmakers and human rights groups have raised concerns about the countries with which the administration has deals. Many of those countries have an extensive history of human rights violations.

The Democratic report alleges that the administration has relied on blanket assurances that the deportees will be treated in accordance with international human rights law.

However, the report states that “Trump Administration officials have acknowledged that countries are not upholding the assurances they provided the United States and that the Administration is not taking steps to address these violations.”

“The Administration has provided no evidence of systematic monitoring, follow-up or enforcement, raising serious concerns that these assurances exist on paper only,” the report states.

Staff from the committee heard from US officials in one country that received third country nationals that the administration had instructed them not to follow-up on the treatment of the deportees, the report says.

A November report by Human Rights Watch and Central American rights group Cristosal alleged that dozens of Venezuelans deported from the US to a Salvadoran prison earlier this year were subjected to torture and other serious abuses including sexual violence.

The story headline has been updated.

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