LIBERIA

Background and Developments (last updated September 4, 2026)

The September 2025 agreement was released on the U.S. State Department website in March 2026. The terms of the agreement include provisions for transferring third country nationals seeking protection and adherence to the 1951 Refugee Convention, its 1967 Protocol, and Convention Against Torture, and non-refoulement safeguards. 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.

Liberia’s Refugee Act of 1993 outlines the legal framework underpinning the rights of refugees in Liberia. Though, in the past, the UNHCR worked with the Liberian government (through the Liberia Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission) to provide assistance and protection for refugees and asylum seekers in the country, it is not currently operating in Liberia.

The September 2025 agreement between the U.S. and Liberia 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.

But, in spite of the existence of this ACA, DHS did not attempt to have the cases of asylum seekers in the United States pre-termitted so that they could be removed to Liberia pursuant to the agreement. Nor were any third country nationals transferred from the United States to Liberia for months after the ACA was signed. 

Nonetheless, the U.S. has been persistent in pushing Liberia to accept third country nationals. On October 17, 2025, Marco Rubio and the Foreign Minister of Liberia met to discuss “the shared challenge migration poses and how both countries can work closer together on this issue.”  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. On October 29, 2025, five days after Liberia’s announcement on Abrego Garcia, the United States extended the validity of business and tourism visas for Liberian citizens from 12 months to 36 months. Then, in December 2025 the U.S. and Liberia signed an MOU where the United States committed $124 million to Liberia’s health sector. That same month, U.S. backed Ivanhoe Atlantic agreed to pay $1.8 billion for a five year concession to transport iron ore on Liberia’s rail corridor. Also in December 2025, the U.S. State Department agreed to give the Liberian government $5 million to manage third country nationals transferred by the United States. 

On August 18, 2026, Liberia’s Ministry of Information announced that Liberia plans to accept up to 1,200 third-country nationals with medical authorization to travel. Liberia recognized that some nationals may wish to seek asylum in Liberia, but implied that these third country nationals would be received outside of the parameters of an asylum cooperative agreement.  On August 20, 2026, 20 third country nationals were forcibly transferred from the United States to Liberia but six refused to leave the aircraft and were instead removed to Equatorial Guinea.The third country nationals (from Cameroon, Eritrea, Venezuela, Honduras, Colombia, Brazil, and Guatemala) remaining in Liberia could not be deported to their home counties because U.S. immigration judges found they would likely be persecuted or tortured there. Deportation to Liberia has also separated them from their families in the United States. In Liberia, they are staying in a hotel in Marshall, about fifty kilometers from the capitol, and report feeling unsafe leaving it.