The administration of President Donald Trump is urging Serbia and other Balkan countries to take in migrants being deported from the United States, sources told Bloomberg.
According to the agency’s sources, appeals to regional governments to accept deportees are ongoing and form part of a broader strategy to find foreign countries willing to receive migrants expelled from the US.
One source said that the effort is being promoted by the regional offices of the US State Department. It is unclear whether any agreements have been finalized. The White House, US State Department, and Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to requests for comment.
In May, the Supreme Court approved the Trump administration’s plan to revoke temporary protected status from up to half a million citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The administration has been exploring potential destinations for migrants from these countries who could face deportation.
These talks with Balkan countries come amid ongoing legal challenges to the US’s tough immigration policies. Recently, over 200 migrants, mostly Venezuelans, were deported to El Salvador.
To carry out these deportations, the Trump administration applied a wartime law that allows the president to bypass federal immigration regulations and expel “enemy aliens” if a foreign country poses a threat of “invasion or predatory seizure.”
