Monrovia, Liberia – Samwar Fallah began receiving calls this week from people in the United States seeking information about 20 relatives sent to Liberia, a country none of them is a citizen of.

The families asked the Monrovia-based lawyer to find out where their relatives were taken and what would happen to them. He could not tell them much.

He knows the group landed at Roberts International Airport near capital Monrovia on Thursday and was driven away in a bus by Liberian officials. He does not know where they were taken, whether they are free to leave, or what legal status they now hold.

Fallah avoids calling them deportees because the government has not defined their status under Liberian law.

“You cannot relocate a citizen from one country to another without clear information as to why that person has been relocated,” Fallah told Al Jazeera. “Imagine you coming from maybe El Salvador and then you find out you are on a plane to Liberia.”

The group is the first transferred under an arrangement allowing Liberia to receive up to 1,200 people deported from the US over the next 12 months.

The Liberian government announced the move on Tuesday, two days before the flight. Politicians say they were not consulted.

Fallah, assisting the families without charge alongside two US immigration lawyers, said they want to know whether their relatives may settle in Liberia, choose where they can go, or eventually return to the US.

He has no answers.

The arrangement involves third-country deportation: sending people to a country other than their country of citizenship. It has raised questions about executive power, sovereignty and the rights of those transferred.

‘Guests of the Republic’

The government said the deportees have not been detained and described the arrangement with the US as humanitarian.

Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah said those transferred would be received as “guests of the Republic”. They are free to leave and may seek asylum, he added.

Piah linked the decision to Liberia’s history as a settlement for free and formerly enslaved Black people from the US and a country whose citizens sought protection abroad during 14 years of civil war.

“Liberia’s gesture is entirely humanitarian and in keeping with the country’s longstanding traditions,” he said.

Piah insisted Liberia would not bear the cost. Accommodation, food and eventual onward travel would be covered by the US government and an international partner organisation, he said.

However, the government has not provided further information about the people who arrived on Thursday. It has not disclosed their full nationalities, where they are being housed, the legal documents under which they entered Liberia, or the identity of the international organisation paying for and managing their stay.

The Reuters news agency on Friday reported that five of those people refused to leave the plane and were instead transported to Equatorial Guinea. Al Jazeera has not verified the report independently.

Justice Minister Natu Oswald Tweh said Liberia reviews each passenger list and may reject anyone. “Most of them are people who had immigration violations and offences,” he said.

But the government has not published its screening criteria or said whether any arrivals had US protection orders preventing their return to their countries.

Al Jazeera found out that most of those deported were nationals of Latin American countries, including Venezuela and Cuba.

But “guests” does not establish a legal status under Liberian law. It remains unclear whether those people entered on temporary permits, whether they can work, or whether they must apply for asylum or residency.

Although Piah said the group was free to leave, officials did not allow journalists to speak with them at the airport. They walked down the aircraft steps, boarded a bus and were driven away under official supervision.

Was legislative approval required?

Some of the strongest objections came from politicians who say the arrangement may require legislative approval.

Nimba County Senator Samuel Kogar cited Article 57 of Liberia’s constitution, which empowers the president to conduct foreign affairs and conclude treaties, conventions and similar agreements “with the concurrence of a majority of each House of the Legislature”.

“Was this arrangement brought before both Houses of the Legislature and approved by the required majority?” Kogar asked. “If not, then under what legal authority was this agreement made?”

The government said the arrangement rests on diplomatic notes exchanged on September 4 and September 10 last year.

Third Country Deportation Watch, a project operated by Refugees International and Human Rights First, said the text appeared on the US State Department’s website in March. Most Liberians heard about it only in August.

Representative Anthony F Williams, a member of House committees covering national security, human rights and foreign affairs, rejected the idea that the executive could act alone.

“No agreement that borders on the national security of this country, the sovereignty of the country, can just be entered into by the executive branch alone,” he told Al Jazeera.

The legislature is on a break until October. Williams said he would seek answers on housing, healthcare, screening and Liberia’s authority to detain or remove anyone.

His concerns, he said, were about state capacity, not the arrivals.

Liberia lacks the biometric systems and trained personnel to document as many as 1,200 people moving across counties or porous borders, he said, adding that those fleeing persecution could also be traced by the governments they escaped.

Eddie Jarwolo, executive director of NAYMOTE Partners for Democratic Development, said no published plan showed how Liberia would accommodate the arrivals without further straining public services.

Civil society groups were not consulted, he said. He called for independent monitoring of living conditions, spending and legal compliance.

Was there a diplomatic tradeoff?

The government insists Liberia received no payment or diplomatic reward for accepting the transfers. Critics have called for disclosure of the negotiations.

The arrangement emerged amid several US decisions affecting Liberia. On December 9, 2025, the countries signed a five-year, $124m health memorandum. Washington also extended B1/B2 visitor visas for Liberians from 12 to 36 months.

Al Jazeera previously reported that those measures followed Liberia’s agreement to accept Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose mistaken removal from the US to a Salvadoran prison became a political and legal flashpoint.

The US later sought court permission to send him to Liberia.

Meanwhile, migrant visas for Liberians were halted in January, according to Third Country Deportation Watch, and the US awarded Liberia $5m this year for migration management.

Neither government has publicly established a direct link between the deportation arrangement and the visa move. Jarwolo of NAYMOTE said the two nations should disclose whether visa extension was linked to accepting third-country deportees.

“If they were linked, it would raise serious concerns about Liberia’s negotiating position, national sovereignty and public safety,” he said. “Development assistance should not require Liberia to accept individuals whose backgrounds and legal status have not been transparently disclosed and properly assessed.”

University of Liberia Student Union president William Sando said he learned of the arrangement through Facebook before Piah confirmed it.

“They have not adequately informed the Liberian people,” he said, rejecting the minister’s argument as “disconnected from the current reality”.

Sando wanted the government to disclose where the arrivals will live and whether those who remain may work.

Kogar, the senator, said the questions went beyond an opposition to migration.

“This is not a small issue,” he said. “We are talking about our sovereignty, our laws, our national security, and the responsibility we have to the Liberian people. Where are we, the Liberians?”