The Trump administration sent more than 100 deportees from Afghanistan, Cuba, Nicaragua and other nations to eight countries across Africa over a 10-day period, according to internal US government documents obtained by CBS News, expanding a “third country” deportation programme that sends migrants to nations where they hold no citizenship.
What the Documents Show
Three Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flights dropped off dozens of men and women 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 also carried deportees from Iran, Nepal, Turkey and Venezuela, alongside African detainees sent to African nations other than their own.
More than 30 countries worldwide have agreed to accept such deportations from the US, including Costa Rica, Panama and Paraguay in Latin America. A growing number of African nations have joined the programme as well, among them the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, all of which face significant armed conflict or political instability. Some countries, including Ghana and Sierra Leone, have reportedly agreed only to accept deportees originally from other African nations, according to CBS News.
Who Is Being Sent, and Why
Some deportees sent to Africa have criminal records beyond immigration violations, including individuals sent to Eswatini and South Sudan, where officials have taken in deportees convicted of violent crimes in the US.
But CBS News reported that many others have no criminal history beyond entering the country illegally or lacking proper documentation. The administration has primarily used third-country agreements to deport people whose home countries reject or limit US deportation flights, such as Cuba, or who hold legal protections shielding them from being returned to their home countries.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement that “if you come to our country illegally, you could end up in CECOT, GITMO, or another third country,” referencing the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador and the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay. “The Trump Administration is utilizing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history,” the statement said, adding that “anyone who has been deported received full due process.”
Accounts From Those Deported
Cuban immigrant Yasmany Moreno de Armas, who had been living and working in Florida, told CBS News he learned only after arriving in the Central African Republic in late July that he was being sent there, alongside detainees from Ecuador, Honduras, Serbia, Russia and Vietnam. “We cannot leave, we don’t have documents and we’re suffering and missing our families, in a continent we don’t know,” he said from Bangui, the Central African Republic’s capital. He said he had not been given notice of the deportation or a chance to challenge it.
The US State Department maintains a “Level 4” advisory warning Americans to avoid the Central African Republic “for any reason,” citing widespread violence tied to armed conflict and the presence of Russian mercenaries. Lawyers for some deportees, including an Afghan man whose family had aided the US military and who had been granted protection against deportation to Afghanistan, say their clients had no connection to the countries they were sent to and were not given advance notice of their destination.
Why It Matters
The scale of the latest flights marks a significant expansion of a deportation strategy that has already drawn criticism from immigration lawyers and human rights groups, who argue that sending migrants to conflict-affected countries where they have no ties raises serious safety concerns. The Trump administration maintains the approach is a lawful tool for removing people who cannot be deported to their countries of origin, as it continues pursuing what officials have called the largest deportation operation in US history.
