Trump's Deals Send Immigrants to Countries Where They Have No TiEs
NEWS & RESEARCH
In 2026, the Trump administration expanded its practice of deporting immigrants to countries where they have no ties—and reportedly brutally mistreating them along the way. On August 20, about two dozen people, most of them Cuban, Venezuelan, Brazilian and Colombian, were flown from Louisiana to Liberia, unaware of where they were being taken. They spent the 14-hour flight shackled at the wrists, ankles and waist; those who protested were beaten, slammed to the floor, and dragged by their chains. The individuals then held in an isolated Liberian compound under constant guard. Six people refused to get off the plane in Liberia, though, so ICE officers took them somewhere else, instead: Equatorial Guinea, home to one of the world's most repressive governments. These six migrants are now being housed in what a lawyer in contact with the deportees says are “horrific” and “inhumane” conditions, and Tutu Alicante, director of the advocacy group EG Justice, adds, "We're talking about individuals who have not committed a crime in the US, and they’re locked up 24/7 in small rooms, and many have been deprived of food and water for considerably long periods.” The majority of the individuals actually held court orders from US judges saying that they could not be forced to go back to their countries of origin, because they faced credible threats of torture, death, or persecution there. But by sending them to an unrelated African country instead, the Trump administration found a legal loophole. For instance, Equatorial Guinea does not have any asylum framework, so the individuals' options are to either stay there in indefinite detention or "voluntarily" choose to return to their home country. Thus, most of the migrants sent to so-called “third countries” have since returned to their country of origin, and many immigration lawyers believe that the policy exists “precisely to circumvent the courts.” Over 23,000 people have been sent under at least 35 bilateral agreements to "third countries" that are not their own since 2025, and more than 100 were sent in just ten days in late August 2026.
SOURCES: New York Times | The Guardian | CBS News | NBC News | Senate Foreign Relations Committee
ANALYSIS & OPINION
In interviews with the New York Times, immigrants who were on the August 20, 2026 flight described a harrowing experience. All of them said they either directly experienced or witnessed abusive or violent treatment by ICE. “They treated us like we were wild animals,” one person said. “Like beasts.” Another man, Leonardo Sánchez, even said, “I was in pain, crying like a little kid.” As the result of various wounds and surgeries, Sánchez only had a thin layer of skin holding his intestines together; he begged for medical attention, but ICE agents refused to remove the chains digging into his stomach. They also did not permit him to use the toilet, causing him to urinate on himself. It’s telling that the Trump administration is sending them to places that the State Department advises Americans not to visit. For example, the Central African Republic is one of the “third countries” receiving immigrants from the US, even though it is considered one of the most dangerous nations in the world, as it is plagued by armed conflict and widespread violence. In fact, a “Level 4” State Department advisory warns American citizens to avoid going to the country for any reason. Yet, the Trump administration is sending immigrants there whose only violation was entering the US without the proper paperwork. And in order to do so, the US government has struck deals that have been shrouded in secrecy with global leaders who are widely seen as corrupt. For example, the agreement with Equatorial Guinea was done with the country’s vice president who is barred from entering the US, accused of money laundering and embezzlement. The practice of “third-country deporting” has already been deemed illegal by a federal judge, who said it violated both the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives people the right to challenge removal to a country where they face torture, and the constitutional guarantee of due process, which requires notice and a chance to be heard. The administration is currently appealing the case.
SOURCES: New York Times | The Guardian | CBS News | NBC News | Senate Foreign Relations Committee
HOW TO FIX IT
Federal action:
Pass legislation banning third-country deportations outright. Two provisions make them possible. 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b) lists where a person may be deported—the country they designate, their country of citizenship, where they were admitted from, last resided, or were born—and closes with a catch-all: if all of those are "impracticable, inadvisable, or impossible," the government may send them to "another country whose government will accept the alien into that country." 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(A) separately authorizes the bilateral deals that supply the willing governments. Both should be struck.
Pass legislation making protection apply to the person, not to a single country. If a judge rules that a Venezuelan man cannot be sent home because he faces credible threats there, the order says exactly that: he can’t be forced to go back to Venezuela. It says nothing about being sent to Ghana or anywhere else. 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3) ties the protection to a place, barring removal to a country where "the alien's life or freedom would be threatened in that country"—which leaves every country the judge never considered wide open. The section should be amended so that a finding of credible danger bars deportation altogether, not merely to the one country named.
Pass the Castro-Keating bill, which would require the federal government to disclose all agreements with foreign countries to deport third-country nationals. This wouldn’t prevent the practice from occurring, but it would offer a first step toward ending the opacity in the administration’s deals, which have largely been conducted in secret, since the administration is considering them diplomatic notes rather than treaties which require Senate ratification.
Congress could give this bill additional teeth by stating that any third-party transfer arrangement is considered void if not sent to the legislature within a specific number of days.
Pass legislation requiring the government to bring anyone back who was sent to a “third country” during the second Trump administration so that they can access a fair immigration hearing in the US. A statutory duty of return could be issued with a fixed deadline.
Ban “chain refoulement” by statute. Congress could amend the Immigration and Nationality Act and implement provisions to say that DHS may not transfer someone to a third country if there is a substantial risk that the receiving country will subsequently deport or transfer that person to a country where they have US protection from removal.
Pass legislation requiring the government to tell people where it is sending them. A statute should require written notice of the destination in a language the person speaks, a fixed number of days before any flight, the right to reach a lawyer, and a hearing before an immigration judge regarding deportation to that specific country. Critically, a removal carried out without those steps should be void as a matter of law. A federal judge issued a similar order, and an appeals court paused the ruling; only Congress can make it stick.
Attach a rider to the appropriations bill. No government is taking these people for free, so Congress could block the money. According to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the $7.5 million paid under the Equatorial Guinea deal came from the State Department's Migration and Refugee Assistance account—money appropriated to help refugees. The legislature could bar funds from this and related accounts from being paid to a foreign government in connection with accepting third-country nationals, and require any such payment to appear as its own publicly identified line item.
Open an investigation. Several senators have pressed the Inspectors General of the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to open an investigation into the administration’s third-country deportations in order to “better understand the scale of legal violations within this system.”
Offer protections while the practice continues. Congress could require cabin recording on all removal flights, with the footage retained for a fixed period and automatic access for the Inspectors General. Allegations of mistreatment by officials could then be checked against a record, rather than left as one side's word against the other's.
Litigation:
U.T. v. Bondi. The US signs what are called Asylum Cooperative Agreements, arrangements in which another country agrees to accept asylum seekers from the US. Signing one requires the government to certify that the receiving country offers a "full and fair" asylum process. This case argues those certifications are false and seeks to void the agreements outright, and although it was filed against deals with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, its ruling could also apply to countries like Liberia, which signed an Asylum Cooperative Agreement of its own.
D.V.D. v. DHS challenges the Homeland Security memo that authorizes the government to deport people to countries their removal orders never named. Issued in March 2025, it tells officers to inform people that they are being deported but "not affirmatively ask whether the alien is afraid" of the country they are being sent to—because asking might produce "false claims rendering the immigration system as a whole less efficient." If a person raises the fear on their own, they get an interview within 24 hours. If they say nothing, the deportation goes ahead. But someone who has not been told which country the plane is going to has no reason to say anything. A federal judge, though, said the policy "is not fine, nor is it legal." People have a right to meaningful notice before removal to any third country, he wrote, and a real chance to argue that country is dangerous. An appeals court then put that ruling on hold. If it is upheld, third-country deportations would not be banned—but they would become far more visible and contestable.
Since US courts have limited jurisdiction once the plane lands overseas, several international cases are relevant here as well—and they could limit the supply of countries willing to accept people deported by the US.
Twenty-seven people deported from the US have sued the Republic of Ghana, which took them in under a secret deal with Washington and then sent many of them on to their countries of origin. The case is before the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a regional bloc whose court issues judgments that are binding on member states. The deportees are asking Ghana to terminate the agreement, halt further deportations under it, disclose its full terms, and pay at least $100,000 per person in compensation. A victory would remove Ghana as a destination—and set precedent reaching other ECOWAS members with deals of their own, including Liberia and Sierra Leone. The case is led by a Ghanaian lawyer alongside Cornell Law School's Transnational Disputes Clinic and the Global Strategic Litigation Council.
Ghanaian courts are hearing two more cases as well. In one, a civil society organization is suing the government for entering a binding international agreement without the parliamentary ratification Ghana's constitution requires—an argument that could be used in other countries, too. In the other, eleven deportees are suing over being held in a military detention camp after they arrived.
A complaint against Equatorial Guinea is also pending before the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. It alleges arbitrary and indefinite detention of deportees from the US, no access to any asylum process, and that Equatorial Guinea forcibly returned six people to countries where they said they faced persecution or torture. It asks the Commission for emergency measures to halt further returns and guarantee everyone a lawyer. Largely the same groups have brought a parallel case against Eswatini on behalf of men held there for months. The Commission can make recommendations, however, but it cannot issue binding orders.
