The Trump administration is seeking to expand its deportation strategy by asking five West African nations—Liberia, Senegal, Gabon, Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau—to receive migrants expelled from the United States whose own governments refuse or delay their repatriation, according to an internal State Department document reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. President Donald Trump personally pressed the request during a 9 July White House lunch with the countries’ leaders, people familiar with the meeting said. The draft accords call for the “dignified, safe and timely transfer” of third-country nationals and prohibit the host governments from returning them to their homelands until U.S. asylum claims are fully adjudicated. The initiative highlights the administration’s push for safe-third-country arrangements as part of its hard-line immigration agenda. State Department cables indicate Washington has approached 58 governments—mostly in Africa—with similar requests, but only eight have agreed so far. The outreach builds on a February deal under which Panama accepted more than 100 deportees, most of them from the Middle East, and a May attempt to send eight migrants—only one a South Sudanese citizen—to South Sudan. U.S. officials contend the president has authority to relocate deportees, including those convicted of serious crimes, when their home countries refuse to take them back. The West African leaders have not publicly said whether they will accept the latest proposal.