Dignity at the Podium, Deportees at the Airport

PRESIDENT JOSEPH NYUMA BOAKAI went to the United Nations on Thursday night and spoke powerfully about dignity. He demanded that Africa, a continent of 1.5 billion people, stop being discussed without a permanent voice on the Security Council. He said a global system “governed by so few” cannot keep deciding the fate of billions. He pledged that Liberia stands ready to “guarantee human dignity, and leave no one behind.”

FINE WORDS. BUT Liberians are entitled to ask how they square with what happened at Roberts International Airport just five weeks ago.

THE DEAL THE SPEECH LEFT OUT

IN AUGUST, LIBERIA agreed to accept up to 1,200 third-country deportees from the United States over the coming year, one of the largest such arrangements under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The first 20 arrived at Roberts International Airport outside Monrovia. They are not Liberians. They include Africans as well as nationals from North America, South America and the Caribbean.

THE GOVERNMENT CALLS this humanitarian. Perhaps. But the facts warrant pause. According to Reuters, these deportees have in most cases won legal protection against repatriation after U.S. immigration judges found they risked torture or other abuses. In other words, Washington cannot legally send them home, so it sends them here.

IMMIGRATION LAWYERS SAY such deportations work as a loophole to push asylum seekers back to their home countries indirectly, and that many end up with little choice but to return to the very places they fled.

Is that what “leave no one behind” means?

NOT LIBERIA ALONE

LIBERIA IS NOT the only African country in this business. At least eight African governments now have confirmed agreements or arrivals, including Eswatini, South Sudan, Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and the Central African Republic. The record elsewhere is troubling.

IN ESWATINI, DEPORTEES have been held at a maximum-security prison pending repatriation. Human Rights Watch has warned that transfers to Eswatini, Ghana, Rwanda and South Sudan exposed several hundred people to the risk of arbitrary detention, ill-treatment and refoulement. One regional outlet reports Ghana has repeatedly sent protected deportees home anyway, and that these deals have paid African governments more than $32 million.

SO HERE IS the contradiction. Africa goes to New York demanding to be treated as an equal partner in global decision-making. Yet at the same time, African governments, Liberia among them, are quietly agreeing to serve as holding grounds for people a powerful nation does not want and cannot lawfully return. That is not the posture of a continent seeking a permanent seat. It is the posture of a continent still taking instructions.

WHAT DID WE GET, AND WHAT DID WE GIVE?

LIBERIANS HAVE NOT seen the terms of this deal. The information minister said Liberia will receive U.S. support to manage the program and strengthen its migration system. What support? How much? Who decides who comes? Where will these people live, and who will protect them? What happens if one of them is later sent back to face torture after passing through Liberia’s hands?

A government that told the UN that trust is broken because principles are applied “inconsistently and selectively” cannot keep its own agreements hidden from its own people.

A SEAT MUST MEAN A SPINE

WE SUPPORT AFRICA’S demand for permanent seats on the Security Council. But visibility is not the same as influence, and a seat is worth little if it comes without the courage to say no. If Liberia wants a louder voice on the world stage, it must show that voice is its own and not borrowed from whoever holds the purse.

LIBERIA ALREADY SITS on the Security Council. It could use that seat to demand transparency and legal protections for every African nation being asked to host deportees. It could lead on the rights of migrants rather than quietly serve the policy that tramples them. That would be leadership worthy of a permanent seat.

THE PRESIDENT TOLD the world that Liberia is “living proof that dialogue can overcome division.” Let that dialogue begin at home. Publish the deal. Explain the benefits. And show Liberians that the dignity promised in New York applies at Roberts International Airport too.