Liberia Risks Its Moral Authority at the UN by Accepting Controversial US Deportation Deal

A plane carrying deportees from the US arrived at the Roberts International Airport outside of Monrovia, Liberia, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. For the past nine months, Liberia has used its experiences of prolonged armed conflict to serve as a principled voice in United Nations debates about the humanitarian consequences of various intractable geopolitical crises, spanning Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, and Iran. Yet, beneath this virtuous veneer lies a troubling contradiction. As the country prepares to assume the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council (UNSC) in December as a non-permanent member, it is flouting its Constitution and contravening UN conventions by hosting third-party deportees expelled from the United States.

A year prior to its charm offensive across the Atlantic—where a delegation led by the president is courting American lawmakers in Washington and broadcasting its peace and security agenda at UN General Assembly convenings in New York—Liberia signed an agreement on September 10, 2025, with the Trump administration. This pact accommodated an undisclosed number of third-country nationals deported from the US. Since January 2025, the Trump administration has struck deportation agreements with 35 countries, with nearly a third of them located in Africa, to receive foreigners whose US immigration statuses range from regularized to protected from removal. Liberia’s cooperation represents one of the largest and most controversial arrangements.

Late last month, the first 20 of an expected 1,200 deportees arrived in a widely reported and condemned handover at Roberts International Airport (RIA). In a dramatic turn of events, six individuals who refused to disembark were swiftly flown to Equatorial Guinea under opaque terms. For those remaining in Liberia, critical questions persist regarding their identities, the reasons for their deportation, their housing arrangements, their freedom of movement, and their legal standing.

Although the agreement between Monrovia and Washington lacks transparency, it remains politically fraught, ethically suspect, and illegal. Conducting deportations without due process and involving cruel treatment violates principles within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Consenting to host third-country nationals without legislative approval directly breaches Article 34(f) of Liberia’s Constitution. Several deportees landing at RIA on August 20 reported being detained in the US without due process, contrary to articles 8 and 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantee an effective remedy and a fair hearing before an independent tribunal. Furthermore, allegations of being chained during the flight may violate Article 5 regarding cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

Domestically, Liberia’s Constitution mandates that any treaties and international agreements negotiated on behalf of the Republic must be ratified by the National Legislature. The Legislature neither deliberated nor approved the agreement, which was unilaterally authorized by the executive branch. Accepting these deportees without legislative approval renders the implementation unconstitutional. Critics argue that participating in these expulsions undercuts Liberia's credibility in upcoming UNSC deliberations and contradicts the legacy of its founding populations who fled 19th-century chattel slavery.

An official press release issued prior to the arrival spun the agreement as a humanitarian arrangement for the safe transfer of non-criminals, claiming Liberia demanded no compensation while noting support would be available for migration management. However, reports from The New York Times indicated that Trump administration officials agreed to pay Liberia $5m for accepting the deportees. This discrepancy, alongside the lack of transparency from officials such as the minister of foreign affairs, the president’s national security adviser, the National Security Agency director, and the acting minister of defence, has deepened concerns over the legality and funding of the program.

This arrangement echoes a history of problematic agreements with the US, including the recent US-Liberia Bilateral Health Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding signed last December, which traded citizens' health data for $124m in assistance without public release or legislative approval. A century earlier, in 1926, Liberia finalized a debilitating loan and land lease agreement with the Finance Corporation of America, a subsidiary of the Firestone Tyre and Rubber Company, which compromised national sovereignty and set an enduring precedent for US resource extraction.

To reclaim its status as Africa’s first independent Black republic and a post-war success story, experts argue Liberia must cancel bilateral agreements with the US that undermine its autonomy, violate national laws, and erode public trust.