More than 25,000 migrants have been sent since January 2025 to countries where they hold no citizenship and often no prior connection, under a strategy the State Department built largely out of public view. A Washington Post investigation published Sept. 21 traces at least $410 million in government spending behind the effort, funneled through a small office most Americans have never heard of. The disclosure lands three days after a federal appeals court found the government's method for carrying out these removals unlawful, adding fresh uncertainty for Venezuelan and Cuban applicants whose other paths to legal status have been narrowing all year.
A Name Worth Getting Right
The office behind this spending isn't the one most people assume. It's the Office of Remigration, a roughly 15-person division created inside the State Department's refugee bureau in May 2025 — not the decades-old Office of Refugee Resettlement, which places asylees and unaccompanied children with host families in the U.S. The Remigration office is led by Christian Ehrhardt, a 41-year-old career diplomat who spent nearly two decades in embassy security before being reassigned to persuade foreign governments to accept deportees who are not their own citizens. One former State Department official who left over the policy told the Post the administration wanted "fast money, with no strings attached."
Tracing the $410 Million
At least 25,447 people had been removed to third countries as of Aug. 31, 2026, according to data compiled by the Forbidden Stories consortium, a Paris-based nonprofit that coordinated a six-month, 26-outlet investigation alongside the Post. Agreements have now been signed with 35 countries — 28 of which have actually received deportees, with 7 more expected to soon. Of the $410 million tracked, roughly $81 million goes directly to the governments accepting deportees, while $178 million funds the International Organization for Migration and $123 million funds the UNHCR, according to internal records reviewed as part of the investigation. Both agencies maintain they aren't parties to the bilateral removal agreements themselves, only to humanitarian programs funded alongside them.
Mexico Is Absorbing Most of the Caseload
Despite headlines about far-flung destinations in Africa and the Pacific, close to 87 percent of confirmed removals — about 20,000 people — went to Mexico. According to tracking by Third Country Deportation Watch, those sent to Mexico are primarily Cuban, Venezuelan, Guatemalan, Honduran, Salvadoran, Nicaraguan and Haitian nationals. The remaining roughly 5,400 people were spread across 27 other countries, including small nations like Palau, which agreed in December 2025 to accept up to 75 deportees for $7.5 million despite a total population under 18,000.
A Court Pumps the Brakes — For Now
On Sept. 18, a three-judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld a February injunction requiring the government to give migrants real notice and a chance to raise fear of persecution before sending them to an unfamiliar country. Writing for the panel, Circuit Judge Seth Aframe said the right to contest such a removal "means little" without advance warning of the destination. DHS has responded that the ruling isn't yet in legal effect and says it intends to keep deporting people while pursuing what would be this case's third trip to the Supreme Court.
The Ground Has Shifted Twice for Venezuelans
Roughly 350,000 Venezuelans lost Temporary Protected Status on April 7, 2025, under an earlier designation — though that termination was blocked in court until the Supreme Court allowed it to proceed on Oct. 3, 2025. A second group of about 260,000 lost a separate designation on Nov. 7, 2025, bringing the combined total to roughly 600,000 Venezuelans stripped of protected status this year. With TPS gone for most, asylum remains one of the few legal paths still open — and even that path got more complicated on Sept. 4, when the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled in a case known as Matter of A-E-V-M- that judges must now weigh Nicolás Maduro's Jan. 3, 2026 removal from power as a changed country condition when assessing an applicant's fear of future persecution. Importantly, the Board didn't deny anyone's asylum outright; it vacated one individual grant and sent the case back for further review, setting precedent rather than a blanket denial.
What Cuban Deportees Are Finding in Mexico
Cubans routed through third-country deals have struggled once they land. A Human Rights Watch report published May 27 documented dozens of cases of people deported to Mexico without money, identification or belongings, then left in what the group calls an indefinite legal limbo with no effective way to access Mexico's own asylum system. "They're casting us aside to die," one 58-year-old Cuban deportee told researchers. Older deportees with chronic health conditions were found to be especially vulnerable, some cut off entirely from medications they'd relied on for years.
What Rights Still Apply Right Now
While the First Circuit's ruling stands, anyone with a final removal order is entitled to written notice of a proposed third-country destination and a meaningful chance to raise a fear claim before being placed on a flight. That protection still depends on the person affirmatively speaking up about their fear — and on having a lawyer on hand beforehand who can explain that the process exists at all.
