NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — Religious leaders in the Central African Republic say they were stunned by the arrival Friday (June 12) of migrants deported from the United States to their country without cultural or familial ties, questioning why people who fled religious and political persecution were sent to a nation still grappling with its own history of sectarian violence and instability.
The U.S. government flew at least two dozen migrants from countries including Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Armenia and Georgia to Bangui, the Central African Republic’s capital, as part of the Trump administration’s third-country deportation agreements with several African and Latin American countries.
Human rights groups and immigration lawyers say several of those deported had established credible fears of persecution in their home countries, including torture, imprisonment and death. Among them were Christian converts at risk and at least one Iranian pro-democracy activist who could face severe punishment if returned to Iran for her political activity and religious beliefs.
“I was surprised to hear that migrants who fled persecution in their own countries had been deported to ours,” Jean Ngaba, an evangelical pastor in southern Central African Republic, told Religion News Service.
Some of the deportees had been granted withholding of removal, a legal protection preventing their deportation to their countries of origin because of the risk of persecution. Rather than being returned home, they were transferred to the …