Human Rights Watch: US third-country deportations to Africa are unlawful

Over 500 migrants sent to African countries where they are not citizens

Human Rights Watch published a report Wednesday finding that the United States has deported more than 500 migrants to African countries where they hold no citizenship, a practice the group said exploits human suffering as a policy tool to deter migration. “Many, if not most” of the deportees have no practical option but to return to their home countries regardless of the harm they face there, HRW said in the report, citing the pattern of onward transfers from third African countries back to deportees’ countries of origin. The figure, drawn from US government data, covers transfers since Trump returned to the White House in 2025. The report draws on interviews with 24 third-country nationals in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, and South Sudan, along with statements by US officials.

The Department of Homeland Security defended the removals in a statement to the BBC, saying “third country removals are an essential public safety tool that remove the most dangerous criminal illegal aliens from our streets.” DHS added that “ICE is given diplomatic assurances from destination countries that the illegal aliens being removed there will be safe” and that “when an individual is no longer in ICE custody, ICE is no longer responsible for them.” None of the African countries named in the report has commented publicly on its findings.

HRW said deportees in Eswatini, Ghana, and South Sudan were arbitrarily detained and subjected to ill-treatment while in custody. The group cited an unnamed US official who told a Senate hearing that the point of the program was that the administration could “threaten people that they will literally be dropped in the middle of nowhere.” The report’s characterization was direct: “The point is to scare people,” HRW said.

Michael Garcia Bochenek, HRW’s interim US programme director, said in the report: “Deporting people to countries where they have never set foot is part of a US policy designed to cause human suffering as a means to deter migration.” He added that “the opaque deals that facilitate these transfers, some of which are still secret, are part of a US policy that violates international human rights law.”

Deportees interviewed by HRW described what the group called “abusive treatment” during their removal flights. They said they were chained for about 18 hours, given no information about their destination, denied access to essential medication, and often left without sufficient food or water.

Eswatini, which has accepted 32 deportees from the US, said three people — from Yemen, Belize and Laos — “voluntarily departed” to their home countries recently. The country’s government said it remained “committed to ensuring that the rights, dignity and well-being of third-country nationals were respected and protected.”

HRW said deportees sent onward from Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and Ghana were transferred to their countries of origin despite the risk of violating the principle of nonrefoulement, the international legal norm that prohibits sending people to countries where they face torture, cruel treatment, or threats to their life and freedom.

The report identified at least a dozen people who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender who were sent to African states that criminalize same-sex relations. Among them were refugees who had been granted protection in the US based on the likelihood of persecution in their home countries because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, HRW said a US lawyer told the group that 15 people from Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador were deported to the country in April. None remained in DR Congo by late September, with 11 having returned to their home countries. “The uncertainty and other conditions they faced in the Democratic Republic of Congo call into question whether these returns to countries of origin were voluntary,” HRW said.

Equatorial Guinea, which received 65 people, quickly sent at least two of them to their home countries, according to HRW. Burundi announced late last month that it had agreed to take in migrants deported from the US, extending the network of African countries participating in the program.

In a separate case in November, a Nigerian man deported from the US to Ghana told the BBC that he and five others were secretly transferred to Togo. He described fears about returning to Nigeria, where his association with a separatist activist group could lead to his arrest and torture.

Tackling immigration was one of Trump’s key pledges during the 2024 election, and the third-country removals have continued as additional African governments have agreed to accept migrants sent by US authorities.