Kaine To Force Votes Demanding Answers Regarding Trump-Vance Administration’s Horrifying, Expansive, Costly Third-Country Deportation Network

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, announced the filing of fifteen additional privileged resolutions to require the Trump-Vance Administration to produce assessments of the human rights situation in Belize, Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Moldova, Palau, Paraguay, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Sierra Leone, and Uganda following reports that the Trump-Vance Administration deported immigrants who are not from those countries to those places. The legislation comes amid new reporting alleging the Administration has pledged at least $410 million to build a vast network of dozens of countries for third-country deportations.

"The American people want the government to focus on lowering their costs, not committing appalling human rights abuses with their tax dollars," said Kaine. "Yet the Trump-Vance Administration is spending hundreds of millions of dollars-or more-to rip migrants from their homes and families without due process and send them to random countries they have no connection to and where they are being brutally beaten and held in awful conditions. We have a right to demand answers about what conditions are like in those countries and to understand what kind of shady backroom deals are facilitating these shameful removals. We can get those answers by passing these resolutions."

The resolutions are privileged under the Foreign Assistance Act, meaning Kaine can force the Senate to debate and vote on them. Kaine previously teamed up with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Alex Padilla (D-CA) to force a vote in the Senate to require a human rights report regarding El Salvador. The move came after President Trump threatened to imprison U.S. citizens there. Kaine has also previously filed resolutions to compel human rights reports regarding Cameroon, Costa Rica, Eswatini, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Mexico, Panama, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Uzbekistan after reports of those countries' involvement in third-country deportations from the United States.

Included here are the full texts of the legislation regarding Belize, Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Moldova, Palau, Paraguay, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.

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