(Reuters) -Burkina Faso has said it rejected a proposal by the United States to take in foreigners being deported as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Trump aims to deport millions of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally and his administration has sought to ramp up removals to third countries, including several in Africa.
Burkina Faso’s neighbour Ghana said in September the government had agreed to take in nationals from other West African countries.
But Burkina Faso Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traore told a national broadcaster on Thursday night that Ouagadougou had refused multiple approaches by the Trump administration to accept third-country deportees.
“Burkina Faso is not a land of deportation,” Traore said, calling the request from the U.S. unworthy and indecent.
Noting that Burkina Faso recently decided to lift visa fees for all Africans, he said the country’s hospitality “should not be seen as an opportunity for a third country to get rid of certain populations that it considers undesirable.”
Burkina Faso’s military-led government, headed by Ibrahim Traore, took power after two coups in 2022. Relations between the country’s authorities and Western powers have grown increasingly strained as the junta has grown closer to Russia.
The U.S. Embassy in Ouagadougou temporarily paused all routine visa services from Friday and advised residents to refer to the embassy in Togo’s capital Lome. No reason was given.
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the U.S. had tried to send third-country deportees to Burkina Faso.
Traore did not say what Burkina Faso might have received had it agreed to the proposal.
Ghana has said the decision to take in West African deportees did not amount to an endorsement of Trump’s immigration policy and that Ghana was not getting anything in return.
(Writing by Anait Miridzhanian; Editing by Robbie Corey-Boulet and Bill Berkrot)
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