Sierra Leone has become the latest African nation to accept deportees from the United States, a move that has reignited calls for a more equitable immigration partnership between the Global North and the continent. The first planeload of 59 Sierra Leonean nationals arrived in Freetown on Monday, a fraction of the hundreds expected under a US policy that has seen a surge in deportations across West Africa. For the UK, the episode underscores a growing diplomatic pressure: if Britain wants Africa’s help in managing irregular migration, it must offer a fair deal on visas, trade and asylum.
The deportees, many of whom had lived in the US for years, were met by officials and offered a six-month reintegration package worth £400,000 in total. But campaigners say the sum is a pittance compared to the economic contributions these individuals made to the US economy. A spokesperson for the Sierra Leonean diaspora in London told this paper: “These are people who paid taxes, worked in care homes and on construction sites. Now they are being sent back to a country with 60 per cent youth unemployment. It is a betrayal.”
The UK government has remained silent on the issue, but backchannel talks are understood to be under way between London and several African capitals. The Home Office is exploring a ‘returns agreement’ with Ghana and Nigeria, modelled on a deal with Rwanda that has so far cost UK taxpayers £120 million without a single deportation. Labour MPs have warned that such agreements must be reciprocal: African nations will not accept deportees without meaningful legal pathways for workers, students and families.
Meanwhile, the cost of this policy is already showing at the kitchen table. In Manchester, a care home manager told me she had lost three workers to deportation in the last year. “One was a nurse from Sierra Leone. She looked after my mother for five years. Now I can’t find anyone to replace her, and the agency fees are going through the roof.” That story is replicated in hospitals, factories and farms across the North. The National Care Association estimates that a fifth of care workers are foreign-born, many from the same countries now targeted for returns.
The moral argument is clear: if the West wants African cooperation on border control, it must address the root causes of migration – poverty, climate change and lack of opportunity. But there is a harder economic calculus. The UK has a shortage of 300,000 workers in key sectors. Deporting skilled workers saves nothing and costs households more in higher prices and lower services. As one union leader put it: “You can’t have Brexit and deport the people who pick your food and wipe your elderly parents’ bottoms. It’s economic illiteracy.”
Sierra Leone’s President Bio has been careful to frame the acceptance of deportees as a duty, not a favour. “We are a nation that believes in second chances,” he said. But behind the gracious words is a blunt reality: the country cannot absorb thousands of returnees without massive investment in housing and jobs. The US has offered only £2 million in aid. For the UK, the lesson is that any immigration deal must include a Marshall Plan for Africa. That means debt relief, green technology transfers and tariff-free access to British markets.
Until then, every deportation flight is a reminder that the immigration system is broken – not just for the deportees, but for the families and businesses left behind. As the care home manager said to me: “We are all connected. You can’t just cut the string and pretend there’s no knot.”
