Around 20 individuals were placed on a deportation flight in late August, shackled and bound, with destinations in Liberia as part of expanded third-country deportation arrangements during the current administration. Since the previous year, more than 23,000 people have been sent to 26 countries other than their own through these arrangements. However, six deportees—four Cubans, one Brazilian, and one Cameroonian—refused to exit the aircraft in Monrovia on August 20. After allegedly being assaulted by agents who returned them to the aircraft with assurances of transport back to the United States, the six individuals were instead flown to Equatorial Guinea hours later.
The six deportees have been detained at a former luxury hotel converted to a detention facility in Malabo, where they remain under guard by armed personnel. Legal representatives report they are confined in inadequate conditions without reliable access to food, hygiene supplies, or medical care, and are unable to contact family members. This marks the first documented instance of individuals being deported to a third country, refusing entry, and subsequently being sent to a fourth nation. Immigration advocates characterized the conditions as inhumane and expressed concern for the detainees’ safety and wellbeing.
Equatorial Guinea has received nearly 60 deportees since November under a deal reportedly secured by vice-president Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue. The agreement provides for compensation of $7.5 million to the Equatorial Guinean government. According to observers, many deportees lacked legal status to remain in the country and faced either indefinite detention or forced return to their origin nations. Immigration lawyers have raised concerns that third-country deportations function as a mechanism to circumvent asylum protections previously granted by US immigration courts to individuals deemed at risk of persecution or harm in their home countries. The Department of Homeland Security stated that all individuals deported under these arrangements were sent to safe third countries and characterized the removals as lawful applications of immigration statutes.
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