NBC News reports:

The incoming Trump administration is preparing a list of countries to which it may deport migrants when their home countries refuse to accept them, according to three sources familiar with the plans.

The countries on the list have included but may not be limited to Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, Panama and Grenada, the sources said.

The plans could mean that thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of migrants would be permanently displaced in countries where they do not know any of the people or the language and have no connection to the culture.

It is not clear if the migrants would be allowed to legally remain to work and live in the countries to which they are deported. It is also not known what kind of pressure — either economic or diplomatic — the Trump transition is applying to countries to get them to agree, or might apply once President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated in January.

In 2019, during Trump’s first term, he sent migrants to Guatemala as part of an agreement with that country to accept people from other countries seeking asylum in the United States. Under that policy, asylum-seekers who had recently crossed into the U.S. were put on a plane to Guatemala without knowing where they were going, according to reporting by NBC News and others at the time. The practice continued through early 2020, though on a relatively small scale, and was halted during the pandemic.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other pro-immigrant rights groups sued the Trump administration over the policy. That lawsuit is still pending in federal court. [Continue reading…]