At least 15 Kenyans who were deported from the USA over unclear reasons arrived in Nairobi on Saturday morning.
The group landed at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport aboard an Omni Air International chartered flight and were received by Kenyan officials on June 14, 2025.
They included one woman and 14 men, officials said.
Officials said the group was deported for violating US immigration rules.
They were processed and released to their families who had arrived to pick them up.
This comes in the wake of President Donald Trump’s campaign against undocumented migrants to the US.
The US had announced that it had halted the scheduling of new visa interviews for foreign students as it considered expanding the screening of their social media activities.
In expanding its new visa policy, the US further announced that it was working to “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields”.
India says over 1,000 nationals deported by US since January
More than a thousand Indians have “come back or [been] deported” from the United States since January, India’s foreign ministry said.
Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that around 62% of them came on commercial flights, without providing more details.
Trump had earlier said that India “will do what’s right” on the deportation of illegal migrants.
In February, the US had deported more than hundred Indians on a US military flight, with reports saying some of them were brought back shackled.
In total, the US is said to have identified about 18,000 Indian nationals it believes entered the country illegally.
The US Embassy in India issued a warning that overstaying in the US could lead to deportation or a permanent ban on entry in the country, even for those who entered legally.
Last week, officials said hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were given special permission to come to the US will be told that they must leave the country immediately.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement Thursday that Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans who were previously temporarily shielded from deportation will be emailed notices telling them to go.
The DHS said that more than half a million people from the four countries were allowed to remain in the US for two years under orders issued by former President Joe Biden.
The directive is expected to face legal challenges from opponents of the Trump administration’s mass deportation programme.
During his time in office Biden expanded the protection, which is called “humanitarian parole” and dates back to the Cold War, due to conditions in each of the four countries.
The DHS previously said that through the end of November 2024, a total of 531,670 people were granted permission to stay in the US under the programme, and that as a result, illegal crossings from citizens of the four countries had decreased by 98%.
It’s unclear exactly how many people will be affected by the new directive, however, as some of the immigrants from those countries may have acquired legal status to remain in the US under other visa programmes.
The Biden administration had said the immigrants, who each required a US-based sponsor, were screened and vetted. However, the Trump administration disagreed.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin called the Biden-era programme “disastrous” and in a statement said it opened the door for fraudulent claims and crime and it undercut American workers.
