ESWATINI’s government has confirmed that it received $5.1m (£3.8m) from the Trump administration for accepting people deported from the US as part of a hard-line approach towards immigration.
The southern African kingdom, led by absolute monarch King Mswati III, has come in for heavy criticism from rights groups for striking the deportation deal with President Donald Trump’s government.
Questioned in parliament about the deal on Monday, Eswatini’s Finance Minister Neal Rijkenberg confirmed the sum received from the US.
“We were told it was for the US deportees after we enquired,” he said, adding the ministry had been kept in the dark throughout the process, AFP news agency reports.
In September, campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it had seen the copy of an agreement, providing for Eswatini to accept up to 160 deportees from the US in exchange for $5.1m to build its “border and migration management capacity”.
Eswatini has so far accepted two batches of deportees – five in July and 10 in October. One of the deportees has since been repatriated to Jamaica, his country of origin.
Eswatini government acting spokeswoman Thabile Mdluli told the BBC that “engagements” were ongoing to repatriate the other deportees to their countries of origin.
“Eventually, they will all be repatriated,” she said.
Rijkenberg told parliament the $5.1m received from the US was put into the account of Eswatini’s National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), AFP reports.
However, the NDMA was not allowed to use the money as it had not been allocated to it by the government, and the payment still needed to regularised, the minister was quoted as saying.
Although this was the first time the government confirmed receiving $5.1m, Ms Mdluli told the BBC that it had “always been transparent” about the fact that the US government was “financing the welfare and repatriation costs” of the deportees along with “other expenses associated with their temporary stay in Eswatini”.
Lawyers and civil society groups in Eswatini have instituted court action to challenge the legality of the government’s decision to accept the deportees.
The government is defending the court action, saying it had the power to reach the deal with the US.
Ms Mdluli told the BBC that any decision to accept more deportees would depend on “engagements” with the US government and “capacity availability”.
Eswatini’s prison department has previously said the deportees were being “securely accommodated”, and posed no threat to the public.
The US had described some of the deportees – from Jamaica, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen – as “depraved monsters”.
The deal also alarmed neighbouring South Africa, which expressed fears that the deportees could cross into the country over their porous border.
Previously known as Swaziland, Eswatini is a small, landlocked country surrounded by South Africa and Mozambique. It has been led by King Mswati III since 1986.