By Jennifer Hansler, Kylie Atwood, Priscilla Alvarez, CNN
(CNN) — The Trump administration has spent more than $30 million to send migrants to far-flung countries that are not their own, including, in a few instances, paying over $1 million a person, a new report from the Democratic chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee says.
In other cases, the report alleges, the administration paid to deport the migrants to a third country, only to pay again to return them to their home country.
The report, released Friday, says that the administration has inked the high-cost deals for the return of “relatively small numbers of third country nationals.”
The report, led by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, offers one of the most comprehensive looks at the administration’s third-country deportation agreements, following criticism the government has been vague about the details of those deals.
The Trump administration has pursued the deals as part of its aggressive deportation agenda, arguing that the immigrants deported to third countries would not have been accepted by their home countries. Frosty diplomatic relations have historically made it difficult for the US to return certain nationals to their countries of origin.
Under the agreements, countries agree – often for money, political favor, or both – to accept immigrants from the US who are not citizens of those countries. Many of the efforts to deport these third country nationals have been met with legal challenges.
According to the report, the administration has an agreement with or has sent third country nationals to more than 20 countries and is pursuing deals with dozens more.
The minority report was also signed by Sens. Chris Coons, Tim Kaine, Tammy Duckworth, Jacky Rosen, and Chris Van Hollen. It notes that the “the total costs of the Trump Administration’s third country deportations through January 2026 are unknown but are likely upward of $40 million.”
Deals with five governments – Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, El Salvador, Eswatini, and Palau – have cost more than $32 million, with much of that funding being provided “as lump sum payments, often before any third country nationals arrived,” according to the report.
The five countries that received the million-dollar payments have collectively only received about 300 third country nationals from the US.
The report notes that the administration often uses high-cost military aircraft to deport migrants, even for flights with only a small number of people.
“The Trump Administration spent an estimated more than $7.2 million on third country deportation flights as of January 2026 to at least ten countries, with actual costs likely far higher,” the report states.
The report says it is based “on a review of agreements through January 2026, staff travel to relevant countries and meetings and communication with U.S. officials, foreign government officials, human rights organizations, deportees and attorneys.”
A Democratic committee aide said they raised a number of questions to the administration in limited engagements. Although the administration provided information in some cases, they have not briefed the committee on the agreements writ large, the aide said.
CNN has reached out to the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
‘The point is to scare people’
And “as of January 2026, more than eighty percent of the migrants sent to third countries the U.S. paid to take them in have already returned to their country of origin, or are in the process of doing so,” the report alleges.
Of the five countries that received the million-dollar payments of third-