Cabo Verde

Transfers have not yet occurred under a November 19, 2025 agreement between the United States and Cabo Verde, as far as is publicly known. The agreement was made public on the U.S. Department of State’s website in April 2026. 

Under the agreement, the United States may propose to transfer to Cabo Verde third country nationals who have sought asylum or other humanitarian protections in the United States. If the government of Cabo Verde accepts them, it may not subsequently deport them to their country unless it has made a final decision on any protection claims in Cabo Verde. Unaccompanied minors are excluded from the agreement and may not be transferred. The United States also may not propose people for transfer if they have “a serious criminal history, gang affiliation, or...have been imprisoned for or convicted of terrorist activity.” The agreement indicates that the U.S. and Cabo Verde governments will develop “operating procedures” to implement the agreement, including determining how many people may be transferred and other eligibility criteria.  

The agreement appears to be an Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA). An ACA is an agreement where the United States bars asylum seekers from applying for U.S. asylum and sends them to a third country to apply for protection there. U.S. law governing “safe third country” agreements provides that asylum seekers cannot be sent to third countries for assessment of their asylum claims unless they would be safe from persecution and have access to full and fair asylum procedures. The U.S. government’s ACAs are the subject of litigation in U.S. federal court in U.T. v. Bondi, which challenges the legality of several aspects of the ACAs purportedly entered into under the safe third country provision of U.S. law. This includes a 2019 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) interim final rule purporting to authorize the ACAs (ratified by DHS in 2025), DHS guidance implementing them, and designations finding that countries with which the United States has ACAs provide access to a “full and fair” asylum system. The current and former Trump administrations have repeatedly entered into ACAs with countries that do not meet safe third country requirements. U.T. v. Bondi began as a challenge to ACAs during the first Trump administration as U.T. v. Barr. 

The U.S.-Cabo Verde agreement was signed after the Trump administration warned Cabo Verde earlier that year that it would ban its nationals from entering the United States if the country did not meet certain requirements within 60 days. Similar warnings were issued to 35 other countries, most of which are in Africa, as the Trump administration considered expanding its Travel Ban restricting entry of foreign nationals from certain countries. In January 2026, the Trump administration announced an indefinite pause on issuance of immigrant visas for nationals of Cabo Verde and other countries. It also required people traveling on B1/B2 visas from Cabo Verde and other countries to pay a bond in the amount of thousands of dollars.

Cabo Verde is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of West Africa. The agreement notes that it is a “Small Island Developing State” that is “geographic[ally] isolated.” Its asylum system is virtually non-existent. The country has not enacted comprehensive legislation that provides a framework for applying for or receiving asylum. No institutional body or formal procedures exist to process and approve asylum applications. There have been only a few known reports of asylum applications filed since 2011, according to U.S. State Department reports.