In a controversial immigration enforcement practice, the United States has been deporting migrants with legal protection status to third countries through clandestine agreements with authoritarian regimes. A 28-year-old East African refugee experienced this firsthand when, despite a U.S. immigration judge granting him protection under the Convention Against Torture, he was forcibly transferred to Equatorial Guinea—a West African petrostate with no asylum system.
The refugee, who fled ethnic persecution in his home country, spent 13 months in U.S. detention centers before being handcuffed and placed on a charter flight operated by Omni Air International. He is among 29 individuals from nine African nations currently detained in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, where they face inadequate medical care, poor sanitation, and pressure to return to the dangerous countries they originally fled.
This practice stems from secretive agreements between the Trump administration and at least seven African nations, including Equatorial Guinea, which received $7.5 million according to Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A February report revealed the U.S. has spent approximately $40 million to deport about 300 migrants to third countries—a legal maneuver that immigration experts describe as circumventing U.S. and international laws protecting refugees from being returned to life-threatening situations.
Meredyth Yoon, litigation director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, stated: ‘The U.S. is deporting people to third countries to circumvent laws that forbid sending a person to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened. Once deported, these individuals face impossible alternatives: indefinite detention without access to counsel, or forced deportation to the very countries they fled from.’
The Department of Homeland Security defended the actions, stating all deportees ‘received due process and had a final order of removal,’ while denying allegations of coercion or physical abuse by ICE officers. Meanwhile, UNHCR reports it is assisting Equatorial Guinea in developing an asylum system, though currently no protection framework exists for those stranded in what refugees describe as a hopeless limbo.