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Third-country deportations
The Trump administration expanded forced deportations of immigrants to “third countries,” shipping men and women in chains to African nations where they have never lived, according to World Socialist Web Site, which said that over a 10-day period in August ICE deported more than 100 people aboard three flights to eight African countries.
“Over a 10-day period in August, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported more than 100 people”
Those flights, CBS News reported in internal U.S. government documents, dropped off dozens of men and women expelled from the U.S. in Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Liberia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, and “None of the deportees were from the countries where they were deported, according to the documents.”
The deportees included people from Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran, Nepal, Nicaragua, Turkey and Venezuela, and World Socialist Web Site said some had serious medical conditions and others had received legal protection from being returned to their countries of origin.
World Socialist Web Site said the New York Times published interviews with 10 people deported to Liberia, describing a 14-hour flight in which deportees were shackled at the wrists, ankles and waist and ICE agents refused requests to use the bathroom.
In the same reporting stream, CBS News said the latest of three ICE flights to Africa dropped off detainees in Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic, where a “Level 4” U.S. State Department advisory warns Americans to avoid traveling there for any reason.
Khalil and the flight
Multiple outlets tied the deportation campaign to an Afghan man identified as Khalil, with NPR and the Associated Press reporting that a deportation flight landed in Bangui, the Central African Republic’s capital, carrying 12 Afghans and eight Iranians.
NPR said Khalil was granted protection against deportation to Afghanistan by a U.S. judge due to fears of persecution by the Taliban, and his lawyer Alma David said his family in Afghanistan had received threats from the Taliban because of his brothers’ work supporting the U.S. military.
Al Jazeera reported that the deportation flight landed in Bangui on Saturday carrying 12 Afghans and eight Iranians, as well as several people from Nepal and Nicaragua, and it said the Afghan man was in his early 20s.
Al Jazeera also said the deportation happened despite the Afghan man being granted protection against deportation to Afghanistan by a U.S. judge, and it quoted Human Rights First’s Savi Arvey saying the flight carried those groups.
In the same case, NPR said the flight was the second to the Central African Republic since June, carrying two dozen migrants, including an Iranian woman facing persecution in her home country.
Legal protections and risk
The deportations were described as using “third country” agreements to send people to far-flung destinations where they have no ties, with CBS News saying the documents “offer a window into the Trump administration's intensifying campaign to use
“offer a window into the Trump administration's intensifying campaign to use "third country" deportation agreements”
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