LIBERIA

The September 2025 agreement was released on the U.S. State Department website in March 2026. The terms of the agreement, including provisions for transferring third country nationals seeking protection, adherence to the 1951 Refugee Convention, its 1967 Protocol, and Convention Against Torture, and non-refoulement safeguards, mirror those in publicly available ACA agreements. The agreement indicates that implementation of the agreement requires operating procedures signed by both parties and is subject to the availability of funds and technical capacity. 

On October 24, 2025, the government of Liberia released a statement agreeing to accept the transfer of Kilmar Abrego Garcia “on a strictly humanitarian and temporary basis.” The statement included an assurance that Abrego Garcia would not be returned to any country where he may face a substantial risk of persecution, torture, or other serious harm, and called for coordination with the United Nations and other partners. The U.S. government cited these as “requisite assurances” in its filings in Abrego Garcia’s U.S. court case challenging his detention and the government’s attempts to deport him to various third countries.

Liberia’s announcement followed a meeting in Washington, DC on October 17, 2025, between Marco Rubio and the Foreign Minister of Liberia to discuss “the shared challenge migration poses” and the Asylum Cooperative Agreement. Following Liberia’s statement agreeing to accept Abrego Garcia, on October 29, 2025, the United States extended the validity of business and tourism visas for Liberian citizens from 12 months to 36 months. In addition, the U.S. and Liberia signed an MOU where the United States committed $124 million to Liberia’s health sector. The Liberian government has also entered into a $1.8 billion concession agreement signed by U.S.-backed Ivanhoe Atlantic to access Liberia’s rail corridor. As of January 21, 2026, the Trump administration halted all immigrant visa issuances for nationals from Liberia. 

The agreement is being challenged as part of the U.T. v. Bondi litigation on ACAs. 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 current and former Trump administrations have repeatedly entered into ACAs – purportedly under the safe third country provision – with countries that do not meet these requirements. U.T. v. Bondi challenges the legality of several aspects of the ACAs, including a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 2019 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. U.T. v. Bondi began as a challenge to ACAs during the first Trump administration as U.T. v. Barr.