DAKAR, SENEGAL – In a development that lays bare the deep flaws of the former Trump administration’s widely condemned third-country deportation policy, Congolese government officials and legal counsel for displaced migrants confirmed Friday that more than half of the 15 Latin American asylum seekers dumped in the Central African nation in April have already made their way back to their countries of origin.
All 15 of the migrants had already received formal rulings from U.S. immigration judges confirming they faced a high likelihood of persecution if forced to return to their home countries, placing their forced transfer to Congo directly at odds with U.S. legal protections for asylum seekers. Congo is one of at least eight African nations that struck little-publicized third-country deportation agreements with the U.S. during the Trump administration, part of a broader, often secretive scheme that saw thousands of asylum seekers deported to nearly 24 countries that were not their countries of birth or habitual residence, according to immigrant rights advocates.
Immigration attorneys have long argued that these third-country deportation deals function as a deliberate legal loophole, designed to circumvent U.S. asylum law and indirectly push vulnerable people seeking protection back into the dangerous situations they fled. Alma David, a U.S.-based attorney representing one of the 15 migrants deported to Congo in April, told reporters that eight of the group have completed their return to Latin America in recent weeks. David confirmed her client, a Colombian woman who previously spoke to the Associated Press about the dire conditions and crippling uncertainty she faced after being stranded in Congo, remains trapped in the Central African country for now.
Another Colombian migrant, Adriana Maria Quiroz Zapata, is also still stuck in Congo, despite a federal judge issuing a formal order last month requiring the Trump administration to return her to U.S. territory. Zapata was originally deported to Congo even though Congolese authorities explicitly rejected her entry, citing an inability to meet her pre-existing medical needs.
David explained that four Peruvian migrants and three Colombians completed their return home earlier this week, with logistical and financial support from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations-affiliated body. Their returns were processed through the IOM’s Assisted Voluntary Return program, which covers travel costs and coordination for migrants who agree to return to their home countries as an alternative to ongoing displacement or forced deportation. One additional Colombian man arranged his own independent return to his home country in recent days, David added.
Legal observers have pointed out that the migrants’ decision to return home, even after U.S. courts ruled they faced life-threatening danger there, reveals the impossible position the third-country policy placed them in. “The fact that they chose to return there anyway raises serious concerns that they likely felt backed into a corner because no viable alternative was presented to them,” David said. The IOM has defended its program, stating that assisted voluntary returns are “strictly voluntary and based on free, prior and informed consent.”
In an official statement released Friday, the Congolese government framed the departures as consistent with the original terms of its agreement with the U.S., saying “These developments confirm the strictly transitional, temporary, and time-limited nature of this mechanism, as announced from its launch. Further departures will take place shortly as part of the implementation of the arrangement.”
Friday’s announcement coincided with a separate legal action by international rights lawyers, who filed a complaint against Equatorial Guinea before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights – Africa’s top regional human rights body. The complaint accuses Equatorial Guinea of forcing U.S.-deported migrants back to their home countries in direct violation of international human rights law. Associated Press correspondent Saleh Mwanamilongo, reporting from Bonn, Germany, contributed reporting to this article.