Everything happens for a reason—Sesario Sewralur

The United States has started deporting migrants to a sparsely populated archipelago in the tropical Pacific, the island nation of Palau told AFP on Wednesday. President Donald Trump has led a push to expel asylum seekers and undocumented migrants from the United States, dispatching them to places like El Salvador and Uganda. Tiny Pacific nation Palau, by population one of the smallest countries in the world, agreed in December to resettle up to 75 deportees in exchange for $7.5 million. The office of Palau President Surangel Whipps said the first deportee had arrived in the country, a collection of coral atolls and volcanic isles scattered some 800 kilometres (500 miles) east of the Philippines. "We welcomed our first individual at the airport in late May, brought him to his temporary residence and helped him connect his phone and settle in," the Palau president's office said in a statement to AFP. The deportees are meant to settle down and find jobs in Palau, starting afresh in an unfamiliar place where they may have no family, friends or cultural connections. But the first deportee barely lasted two weeks after touching down at the international airport near the main settlement of Koror. "After about two weeks he decided not to remain," Whipps' office said.

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