Ranking Member Shaheen, Senators Coons, Kaine, Booker, Van Hollen, Duckworth and Rosen Publish Major New Report on True Cost of Trump Administration’s Third Country Deportation[...]

WASHINGTON - Today, U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Chris Coons (D-DE), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) released a comprehensive report detailing how the Trump Administration's secret deportation deals are undermining U.S. interests and coming at great cost to taxpayers.

Commissioned by Senator Shaheen, the report brings to light the Trump Administration's rapidly expanding use of third country deportations-in which the U.S. deports migrants to countries that are not their own. Previously a rare tool used only in exceptional circumstances, the Trump Administration has broadened this practice into a sprawling system of global removals.

The 30-page report, titled "At What Cost? Inside the Trump Administration's Secret Deportation Deals," is the first Congressional report examining the issue of third country deportations under the Trump Administration and is informed by a ten-month review of agreements, known deals and third country deportations through January 2026, staff travel to relevant countries and meetings and communication with current U.S. officials, foreign government officials, human rights organizations, deportees and attorneys. This report finds that the Trump Administration has expanded and institutionalized a system in which the United States urges or coerces countries to accept migrants who are not their citizens, often through arrangements that are costly, wasteful and poorly monitored. It catalogs the costly and ineffective operations, waste of taxpayer funds through unnecessary removals, concerning lack of oversight on U.S. funds to foreign governments and secret deals that do not serve American interests. Taken together, these actions have created an expensive and dangerous form of shadow diplomacy that prioritizes the appearance of toughness over the security of Americans.

"This report outlines the troubling practice by the Trump Administration of deporting individuals to third countries-places where these people have no connection-at great expense to the American taxpayer and raises serious questions," said Ranking Member Shaheen. "Through its third country deportation deals, the Trump Administration is putting millions of taxpayer dollars into the hands of foreign governments, while turning a blind eye to the human costs and potentially undermining our diplomatic relationships. For an Administration that claims to be reigning in fraud, waste and abuse, this policy is the epitome of all three."

The report comes as the Administration is aggressively seeking to strip hundreds of thousands of migrants of legal status in the United States through the ending of temporary protected status and humanitarian parole, among other avenues, increasing the risk of expanded third country deportations.

This report identifies six central ways in which the Administration's use of third country deportations has undermined U.S. interests:

• Expensive and Ineffective Operations: The Administration has spent tens of millions of dollars to move a relatively small number of migrants to third countries, in some cases paying more than one million dollars per person, with little measurable impact on its deportation agenda.
  
  
• Needlessly Wasting Taxpayer Funds: In many cases, migrants could have been returned directly to their home countries, avoiding costly third country deportations. As of January 2026, more than eighty percent of the migrants sent to third countries paid by the United States to take them in have already returned to their country of origin or are in the process of doing so. In some cases, the U.S. paid to fly migrants to third countries only to later pay again for them to fly to their home country.
  
  
• Providing Money to Corrupt Governments Without Oversight: The United States has sent more than thirty-two million dollars to foreign governments in direct connection with third country deportation deals, including those with records of corruption, human rights abuses and human trafficking, without monitoring how the money is used or whether taxpayer funds are being used to facilitate corruption, human rights abuses or human trafficking. It is unclear how much additional U.S. funding is being redirected to indirectly support these deals.
  
  
• Failure to Monitor and Enforce Agreements: The State Department is not tracking foreign government compliance with diplomatic assurances or enforcing agreement terms, even where evidence suggests foreign governments are violating their commitments. In at least one country, U.S. officials told Committee staff that they were instructed by the Trump Administration officials to not follow up on how deportees were being treated.
  
  
• Secret Deals That Do Not Serve American Interests: Third country deportation agreements have become a central feature of U.S. bilateral relations, involving cash payments, political concessions and coercion, without transparency about the full extent of what the United States is giving in return or the pressures it is exerting. In addition, the Administration is making secret deals with adversarial regimes such as Iran, to accept their nationals back.
  
  
• Circumventing U.S. Immigration Law: Evidence suggests the Administration is using third countries to carry out removals that U.S. law would otherwise prohibit, such as sending protected individuals onward to countries where they may face persecution or death.

The full report is available HERE.

The Executive Summary is available HERE.

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