Burkina Faso has rejected one of President Donald Trump’s signature immigration policies by refusing to accept those expelled from the United States.
Deporting people to third countries, frequently to countries they have no relationship to, has been a feature of Trump’s administration’s broad immigration crackdown since he returned to the White House.
Across Africa, Eswatini, Ghana, Rwanda and South Sudan have all received people expelled from the United States in recent months.
However, Burkina Faso’s foreign affairs minister stated late Thursday that the west African nation had turned down Washington’s advances.
Karamoko Jean-Marie Traore stated on national television that “this proposal, which we considered indecent at the time, runs completely contrary to the principle of dignity.”
The US embassy in Ouagadougou, the country’s capital, had just hours earlier declared that regular services for the majority of Burkina Faso visas would be suspended.
The capital of adjacent Togo, Lome, will now provide services to Burkinabe inhabitants.
Is the purpose of this to exert pressure on us? Is this extortion? Whatever it is… Karamoko Jean-Marie Traore stated, “Burkina Faso is a destination, not a place of expulsion, but a place of dignity.”
Captain Ibrahim Traore, the leader of Burkina Faso, describes himself as a Pan-African strongman who opposes imperialism.
He has cultivated deeper connections with Russia and avoided the wider West and old colonial ruler France since taking power in a coup in September 2022.
