The Trump administration is sending hundreds of people who can’t be deported to their own countries – often because of the threats they would face there – to African countries where they have no connections.
A new Human Rights Watch report details how between January 20, 2025, and August 5, 2026, the United States expelled more than 500 people to countries in Africa that were not their countries of origin, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation data.
Some countries arbitrarily detained people they had accepted, and some have sent people onward to the risk of persecution or torture in their home countries.
Those interviewed by HRW described abusive treatment during their flights from the US. People said they were shackled for the entirety of their journeys – sometimes 18 hours or more –, were denied access to essential medication, and often did not receive sufficient food or water.
Many people we spoke to said US immigration authorities did not tell them which country they were going to.
“An ICE agent told me to sign for deportation to Chad,” said Tesfay T. “I don’t know what happened, maybe later they changed their minds, because we ended up in Cameroon…Even before we got on the plane, we asked where we were going, and they told us, ‘You’ll find out when you arrive.’”
"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,” said Michael Garcia Bochenek, Interim US Program Director at HRW.
Or as one unnamed US official described it: “The point is to scare people.”
>> Read the report here
