MONROVIA, Liberia (AFP) — Liberia said Tuesday it would receive up to 1,200 foreign nationals deported from the United States, as President Donald Trump pursues an unprecedented immigration crackdown.

The Trump administration has launched a sweeping expansion of deportations where the Government has argued it can send people to a country that is not their home nation.

“Liberia intends to accept up to 1,200 persons to be transferred from the United States of America within a year,” the Liberian Government said in a statement.

A first group of 20 deportees would arrive Thursday in the West African nation, it said, adding that they were “free to depart the country when they so desire” or apply for asylum.

The Trump administration has said it wants to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant who became a symbol of mass deportations, to the country after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, the New York Times reported.

In Africa, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea have become key transit points in the US immigration crackdown — even as authorities there quickly send people onwards to their home countries.

Two former State Department officials told AFP that the United States is using visa bans and restrictions on African countries to strong-arm them into taking people from third countries.

The Liberian Government said it “has not demanded or received any compensation or promise of rewards in exchange for its consent to participate in the programme”.

“Liberia will receive support to help manage the program and strengthen its migration system more broadly,” it said, insisting the arrangement was “entirely humanitarian”.

The US State Department refused to comment on the scheme.

Liberia as a nation was founded in the early 19th century by a society which advocated for the return of former slaves and freeborn African-Americans from the United States.