WASHINGTON (AP) — trump administration It paid $7.5 million to the government of Equatorial Guinea, which is seeking the deportation of people to the West African country. Get close to heavily indicted leaderssaid the top Democratic senator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“This highly unusual payment to one of the most corrupt governments in the world raises serious concerns about the responsible and transparent use of American taxpayer dollars,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D.N.H.) said in a letter sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday and obtained by The Associated Press.
Shaheen said in the letter that the $7.5 million payment stands out because it “far exceeds the total amount of foreign aid the United States has provided to the country over the past eight years.”
The payments will come from the Immigrant and Refugee Assistance Fund and are the first intergovernmental transfers from the account created by Congress to respond to humanitarian crises. She questioned whether the payment was an acceptable use of money.
The State Department declined to comment on the specifics of diplomatic communications, but said: “Implementing the Trump Administration’s immigration policies is a top priority for the Department. As Secretary Rubio has stated, our commitment to combating mass illegal immigration and strengthening America’s border security is unwavering.”
As the Trump administration looks to Africa for more deportations, the payments raise questions about how it intertwines its deportation agenda with other foreign policy goals and the international leaders it wants to trust.
The Trump administration has sought to strengthen deportation enforcement by: make agreements with countries Accepting immigrants who are not nationals of the country. Immigrant advocacy groups have criticized the “third country” policy as a reckless tactic that violates due process rights and could strand deportees in countries with long histories of human rights abuses and corruption.
At the same time, the Trump administration has developed a relationship with the vice president of Equatorial Guinea. Teodoro “Teddy” Nguema ObiangHe is a notorious figure among world leaders accused of corruption due to his lavish lifestyle. attracted the attention of prosecutors in several countries.
The Associated Press reported that the State Department gave the go-ahead. exemption from sanctions The plan is to allow him to attend a high-level United Nations meeting in New York in September and to visit other U.S. cities. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau I met Obiang.
In addition to deportations, the U.S. is seeking to counter Chinese influence in Equatorial Guinea and boost U.S. oil and gas interests in the region.
Obiang is the son and heir apparent of Equatorial Guinea’s longtime ruler. He is accused of decades of corruption and abuse of power. The vice president, who oversees defense and security, has been under international sanctions for years and faces charges of siphoning the nation’s wealth while most people live in poverty.
Despite Equatorial Guinea being rich in oil and gas, at least 70% of the country’s roughly 2 million people live in poverty. Obiang’s father, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Africa’s longest serving presidenthas held power since 1979.
In 2017, a French court found the young Obiang guilty of laundering and embezzling millions of euros, sentenced him to a three-year suspended sentence, fined him 30 million euros and ordered him to forfeit his luxury property in Paris and his car collection worth tens of millions of euros. Equatorial Guinea has challenged these seizures at the International Court of Justice.
U.S. prosecutors also reached a $30 million settlement with Obiang in 2014. Obiang had to surrender assets including his Malibu mansion, Ferrari and Michael Jackson memorabilia.
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Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.
