ICE Deports Afghans and Others to Africa, Expanding “Third Country” Deportations

Over a 10-day period, the Trump administration sent more than 100 deportees from Afghanistan, Cuba, Nicaragua and other nations to eight countries across Africa, expanding its “third country” deportation campaign, according to internal U.S. government documents obtained by CBS News.

Three Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flights, the government documents show, dropped off dozens of men and women expelled from the U.S. in Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Liberia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone.

None of the deportees were from the countries where they were deported, according to the documents. In addition to Afghans, Cubans and Nicaraguans, the ICE flights over the past week and a half included deportees from Iran, Nepal, Turkey and Venezuela, as well as African detainees who are not from the nations where they were sent.

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More than 30 countries across the globe have agreed to receive such deportations from the U.S., including some in Latin America like Costa Rica, Panama and Paraguay. But a growing number of African countries have brokered third-country deportation deals with the Trump administration, including nations like the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, plagued by armed conflict, political tumult and human rights abuses.

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The latest of three ICE flights to Africa dropped off detainees in Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic, where longstanding armed conflict and Russian mercenaries have made the landlocked country one of the most dangerous in the world. A “Level 4” U.S. State Department advisory warns Americans to avoid traveling there for any reason, given widespread violence and insecurity.

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