A plane transporting individuals deported from the United States has arrived in Uganda, as President Donald Trump’s administration continues advancing its policy of sending migrants to countries where they have no previous connections.

According to a senior Ugandan government official who spoke anonymously, those removed from the US will remain in the east African nation during what was described as “a transitional period” before they may potentially be relocated to other destinations.

The Uganda Law Society, which voiced strong opposition to the development, reported that 12 people were aboard the aircraft. This marks the first group transferred under a bilateral agreement signed between Uganda and the US in August. Authorities have not disclosed further information, including the nationalities of those deported.

The United States has previously transferred dozens of migrants to third-party nations. Other African states that have received or agreed to accept deportees include Eswatini, Ghana, Rwanda, and South Sudan. Individuals sent to these countries have originated from places such as Cuba, Jamaica, Yemen, Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar.

The Uganda Law Society announced plans to challenge the deportations through legal action in both domestic and regional courts. The organization denounced what it described as “a degrading, distressing and dehumanising process” that it argued treated the deported individuals as commodities serving private interests on both sides of the Atlantic.

Yasmeen Hibrawi, public affairs counsellor at the US embassy in Kampala, stated that all removals were conducted “in full cooperation with the government of Uganda.”

She added that specific details regarding diplomatic discussions or the individual cases could not be shared, citing confidentiality and privacy considerations.

When announcing the agreement in August, Ugandan officials explained that the country would receive certain third-country nationals who had failed to secure asylum in the US but were unwilling to return to their countries of origin.

Uganda clarified that it would not accept individuals with criminal backgrounds or unaccompanied minors. Officials did not indicate whether financial compensation would be provided by the US. The country already hosts close to 2 million refugees and asylum seekers, primarily from neighboring nations such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan.

According to reports, deportation orders to Uganda have been issued for hundreds of asylum seekers. Prior to the arrival of the recent flight, Uganda’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Oryem Okello, said that no asylum seekers had yet been transferred under the arrangement.

Okello suggested that US authorities might be evaluating costs and seeking to avoid operating flights with only a small number of passengers. “Transporting one or two people at a time is not practical,” he said, emphasizing that full planeloads would be more efficient.

Separately, the US agreed to provide Eswatini with $5.1 million (£3.8 million) in exchange for accepting up to 160 third-country nationals. In July, five men were deported to the southern African country, followed by 10 more in October. Since then, two have been returned to Jamaica and Cambodia, while the others remain held in a maximum-security facility.

Government figures show that, as of 12 March, more than 63,000 individuals were being held in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. A joint report by the nonprofit groups Human Rights First and Raices found that between April 2025 and February 2026, approximately 5,600 people — including toddlers and newborns — were detained at an ICE facility in Dilley, Texas.