ALSO SEE: After Deportees Resist Arrival in Liberia, U.S. Flies Them to Another Country

The Trump administration approved the payment after Liberia said it would consider taking migrants from other countries.

The Trump administration approved a $5 million payment to Liberia in connection with a deal to send migrants there from the United States, according to internal documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The State Department documents show why the United States directed a grant to the West African nation, which announced this week that it was accepting up to 1,200 deportees over the next year, one of the largest known deals the Trump administration has made to send people to countries where they have no ties. The first group arrived in the Liberian capital area of Monrovia on Thursday.

The Trump administration, aiming to ramp up deportations, has been striking deals with other nations willing to take migrants who cannot legally be deported to their home countries for various reasons, including because they could face persecution.

Many of those so-called third-country deportation deals have been shrouded in secrecy and have come under intense scrutiny by human rights groups, which have criticized the administration for sending migrants to unfamiliar countries, including those with records of human rights abuses.

The $5 million payment to Liberia was approved by the State Department in December, and was made in response to a commitment from that country two months earlier that it would consider accepting migrants from other nations, the documents show.

Liberia assured the United States that the deportees would not be subject to persecution based on factors like race or religion. The documents say that the State Department found Liberia’s assurances to be credible, and that the agency approved the payment, which it said could be used for efforts to support Liberia’s immigration system and vulnerable migrants. That could include measures to provide shelter, food and job training, the documents said.