The Trump administration sent more than 100 deportees from Afghanistan, Cuba, Nicaragua, and several other countries to eight nations across Africa over a 10-day period, according to internal US government documents obtained by CBS News, significantly expanding a controversial “third country” deportation program.
What Happened
Three Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flights dropped off dozens of men and women expelled from the US in Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Liberia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone, according to the documents. None of the deportees were citizens of the countries where they were sent. Beyond Afghans, Cubans, and Nicaraguans, the flights over the past week and a half also included deportees from Iran, Nepal, Turkey, and Venezuela, as well as African detainees sent to countries other than their own.
The specific international agreements underlying the program have largely remained shrouded in secrecy, though reporting indicates some countries, including Ghana and Sierra Leone, have only agreed to accept deportees originating from other parts of Africa. Other nations, including Eswatini, the Central African Republic, and Liberia, have received detainees from Latin America, Europe, and Asia, reflecting a broader and more geographically indiscriminate pattern than earlier phases of the program.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN the agreements “ensure due process under the U.S. Constitution” and are “essential to the safety of our homeland and the American people,” adding, “We are applying the law as written. If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period.” Some deportees sent to Eswatini and South Sudan have criminal records for violent and serious crimes, according to officials, though CBS News reporting indicates many others lack any criminal history beyond immigration violations.
Why It Matters
The program’s expansion to include people who had previously received “withholding of removal” protections, legal safeguards specifically intended to prevent deportation to places where an individual faces persecution, torture, or death, represents a significant escalation, since such protections technically still permit deportation to third countries where the person has no ties or history.
For deportees sent to some of the receiving nations, several of which face significant political instability, armed conflict, or extremely limited infrastructure, the practical consequences of removal to an unfamiliar country with no established support network raise serious humanitarian concerns independent of the underlying legal justification for the deportations themselves.
The program’s rapid geographic expansion, now spanning at least eight African nations in addition to earlier agreements with countries like Panama, illustrates how the administration has systematically worked to secure “third country” deportation agreements across multiple continents, addressing a long-standing practical challenge in US immigration enforcement: the difficulty of deporting individuals to countries that refuse to accept their own returning citizens.
Context and Background
The Trump administration has pursued third-country deportation agreements as part of its broader immigration enforcement strategy since taking office, with earlier deportation flights to the Central African Republic beginning earlier this year, including migrants who had fled countries like Iran due to religious persecution as Christian converts, according to prior CBS News reporting.
Rwanda became one of the more recent African nations to receive deportees, with a government spokesperson confirming seven deportees arrived earlier this month after Rwanda agreed in early August to accept up to 250 deportees under its own bilateral agreement with Washington. South Sudan and Eswatini were among the earliest African nations to accept small numbers of deportees under the program.
The US has historically faced significant logistical challenges deporting migrants to countries in Africa and Asia given the long distances involved and the reluctance of some governments in those regions to accept deportation flights, a barrier the administration’s third-country agreements are specifically designed to circumvent by identifying willing receiving nations regardless of the deportee’s actual nationality.
Analysis
Immigration policy analysts note that the program’s use of withholding-of-removal cases, individuals who had previously been granted specific legal protection against return to their home countries, represents a more legally aggressive application of the third-country deportation strategy than earlier phases, since it directly targets a population Congress and prior administrations had specifically intended to shield from removal.
Human rights researchers point to the receiving countries’ documented political instability, including ongoing armed conflict and civil unrest in nations like the Central African Republic and South Sudan, as raising significant concerns about deportees’ safety and access to basic services following their arrival, concerns that fall outside the narrower legal question of whether the deportations themselves comply with US law.
Some foreign policy analysts note that the secrecy surrounding the specific terms of many of these bilateral agreements complicates independent assessment of what commitments, if any, the US has made regarding deportees’ treatment or resettlement support in the receiving countries, limiting external accountability for how the program operates in practice.
What Happens Next
Continued expansion of third-country deportation agreements to additional nations appears likely given the administration’s demonstrated pace of activity, with further flights expected as ICE continues working through its backlog of deportation cases involving individuals whose home countries refuse repatriation or where direct return raises legal concerns.
Legal challenges to the program’s use of withholding-of-removal cases specifically may emerge given the tension between the program’s practical operation and the underlying legal protections such status was designed to provide, a dynamic likely to draw continued scrutiny from immigration advocates and legal observers in the coming months.
