According to the Liberian government, the decision to welcome Abrego Garcia, who was unlawfully deported from the United States in March only to return under a court injunction in June, follows its longstanding tradition of offering refuge to those in need. Liberia was once a semi-autonomous territory funded in part by the Washington, DC-based American Colonisation Society (ACS) comprising powerful white men who viewed free Blacks as a threat to slavery and saw emigration (deportation) as the only solution to dispose of them.