Cover image: Reporters: ICE, Trump and Africa: Secret deals, broken lives
© Studio graphique FMM
44.03
Issued on: 21/09/2026
44:07 min From the show
For this edition of Reporters+, Karina Chabour investigated the dark side of US President Donald Trump’s immigration policy: How ICE deports immigrants to so-called third countries in Africa, far from the United States and often far from their countries of origin.
Most of the people deported have been living in the US for decades. They worked, paid taxes and many even have families who were left behind. Without notice, they were arrested, detained and then deported to Ghana and Eswatini: countries they don’t know and where they have no relatives, no income and no legal status.
Our reporter met individuals who now live in limbo: without papers and sometimes detained, at risk of being sent back to the very country they fled, many fearing for their lives.
Cover image: Sofia Alvarez Jurado, Forbidden Stories, Paris, September 21, 2026. © Screengrab
09:59
09:59
The Deportation Project: behind the investigation on Trump administration’s mass deportations
As part of a consortium of 26 media outlets coordinated by Forbidden Stories, RFI and FRANCE 24 spent six months investigating the secret deals struck between the administration of US President Donald Trump and several African countries. These “third countries” have agreed to host undocumented migrants detained by ICE and deported from the US.
From Ghana to Cameroon and Eswatini, our journalists spoke to the people deported to countries utterly unfamiliar to them.
Lives in limbo and US pressure on African states
Behind the broken lives of the deported, the film reveals a dark system put in place by Washington. To secure agreements with African states, the US piles on the pressure: political and financial deals, discreet bargaining, or trade and tariff incentives.
READ MORE‘Waiting for us to crack’: In Cameroon, the victims of Trump’s deportations face uncertain fates
“ICE, Trump and Africa – Secret deals, broken lives” reveals how the US is relocating deportations: how secret deals are being carried out by the Trump administration, using human lives as a negotiating tool.
With the collaboration of Caroline Dumay, Olivia Bizot, Simon Martin and Marine Pradel.
Third-country removals: Trump’s deportation policy by the numbers
INVESTIGATION
Since January 2025, the Trump administration has deported more than 25,000 people to so-called “third countries” – places that are not their countries of origin. Working with a team of 26 international media outlets, Forbidden Stories and FRANCE 24 have used information gathered by NGOs and open-source information to count and map these deportations. Our investigation shines a light on the scale of this mass deportation campaign that is being carried out under the cover of darkness.
Issued on: 21/09/2026 -
By:The FRANCE 24 Observers/
Lise KIENNEMANN
Deals with 13 African countries
But people haven’t just been deported to the Americas. “During the first Trump administration, there were agreements signed with Mexico and three Central American countries [Editor’s note: Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador],” said Arvey. “Now we're seeing that the US is going well beyond Mexico and Central America to countries in the Caribbean, countries throughout South America and countries across Africa and even in parts of Eastern Europe.”
Thirteen African nations, most in West or Central Africa, have signed third-country deportation deals with the United States – representing more than a third of the overall countries that have signed. Of them, 12 had already received third-country deportees by August 31, 2026, representing a total of 450 people. For the time being, Ghana is the African country that has received the largest number of individuals, with more than 100 people from third countries being sent there. The Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Eswatini have each received dozens of people.
Savi Arvey says that some of the agreements are being made with “countries that previously the United States did not look to partner with”, including “such a corrupt autocratic government like Equatorial Guinea”. “It seems like the goal for the United States is the deal. The profile of the country, its human rights record doesn't matter at all. ”
‘I had started a new life in the United States; I felt safe’
According to our count, the people who have been deported are from nearly 90 different countries, most from Africa or Central or South America.
Malick (not his real name) was on the same deportation flight as Rabbiatu. Born in Senegal, he came to the United States in 2023 after fleeing his country over fears about his safety. He obtained a work permit.
“I had started a new life in the United States,” he said. “I felt safe.”
Like Rabbiatu, Malick had been granted a “withholding of removal”, meaning that the United States government can’t deport you to your home country because your life or freedom would be threatened there.
The Trump administration has said on numerous occasions that they are targeting people with criminal records for deportation. In June 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that the policy would apply to “aliens who are so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won’t take them back, including convicted murderers, child rapists and drug traffickers".
But the reports published by different NGOs tell a different story, as do the interviews that our group carried out with 33 different people who have been deported.
“I did not commit any crime; I always abided by the law,” Kuyateh said. She’s far from the only one. Most of the people deported to African countries don’t have any criminal record, says Alma David, an American lawyer who represents dozens of deportees to Africa.
Furthermore, of the people deported to third countries who do have criminal records, many had already served their sentence – in many cases, years ago.
Poor treatment and arbitrary detention
While third country deportations are legal under US law, it is only under limited circumstances and when proper protocols have been followed to guarantee the person’s safety.
However, NGOs as well as lawyers representing the victims have been reporting on the human rights violations taking place during these transfers, including degrading treatment and arbitrary detention. In El Salvador, more than 250 men have been held in a high-security prison meant to house gangs, a place with “inhumane prison conditions", according to Human Rights Watch. The organisation also documented “constant beatings” and “cases of sexual violence".
Human rights organisations are also worried about the specific people who have been deported.
“What's been extremely worrying is the targeting of people who've been granted withholding and removal or protection under the Convention Against Torture for third-country removals, in particular to various countries in Africa, but also to Mexico,” Arvey said.
Historically, people with this legal status were generally not deported. But as part of its mass deportation campaign, the new Trump administration has started using third-country removals as a way to deport people without returning them to their home countries.
Like Malick and Rabbiatu, Soraya (not her real name) had this legal status. Soraya is Ghanaian; she fled to the United States in 2024 because of her sexual orientation. “Withholding of removal, it's protection,” she said. “I was thinking they were going to protect me rather than sending me to a third country that will not accept me. But they still brought me to Cameroon, an African country that doesn't accept LGBT.”
Fears are particularly centred on the risk of "chain refoulement” – in which individuals are removed to a third country only to be sent back to their home country, where they face persecution. “In many cases, what we have seen is they are very much sending people back to countries that US immigration judges have established are dangerous for them,” said Meredyth Yoon, a US-based lawyer who represents more than a dozen third-country nationals removed to African countries.
Isatou (not her real name), a Guinean who migrated to the US to flee a forced marriage, was removed to Ghana, and then sent back to her country of origin. For her safety, we won’t say where she is now. But a few months after her removal, she told the consortium she had no choice but to hide. “I don’t go out anymore, I’m scared of coming across my family,” she said. “They ruined my life.”
‘Indirect form of return to harm’
Michael Garcia Bocheneck, interim director of Human Rights Watch's US programme, said:
“We think the government is using third-country removals to avoid the responsibilities that it has under international law not to return people to harm. (...) In many cases, it seems that the tacit assumption is that the third country will simply return them to their home country anyway. It's an indirect form of return to harm, and it's still a violation of international law.”
Carolyn Patty Blum, Clinical Professor of Law Emerita at UC Berkeley School of Law, said that in accordance with the non-refoulement principle – “a defining principle” of international law –, “no one should be forced to return to any country where they face a risk of persecution, human rights violations or torture". “Both the United States and the receiving countries violate that law by transferring people to places where they face serious risk of harm.”
Many of the deals include blanket language on ensuring migrants are not arbitrarily detained or sent to another country where they could face persecution. But the “stated ‘assurances’ of protection in the receiving country are inadequate", said Blum, who also pointed to the absence of “any methods of ongoing oversight” once the individual is outside the US.
Moreover, while some of the deals (known as “Asylum Cooperative Agreements”) include guarantees that transferred individuals can request asylum in the receiving country, other arrangements (called “Third-Country Removal Agreements”) offer no such protections. “What's been so concerning in this case is that often there's a reference to just transit,” Arvey said. “It’s very overt that the country understands that it will just serve as a transfer point. So it raises huge concerns about refoulement.”
Human rights advocates have repeatedly denounced the DHS policy of deporting individuals with little to no notice – leaving them with no real chance to contest their removal if they fear for their safety in the receiving country. On September 18, 2026, a US federal appeals court ruled that removing individuals to third countries without giving them a meaningful opportunity to raise fears of torture or persecution is illegal. The court also rejected the Trump administration's argument that general human rights assurances from third countries are sufficient.
DHS General Counsel James Percival said shortly after the decision that the ruling will not prevent “the third country deportation policy” from “continuing”. “If you claim fear in your home country, DHS has the right to send you elsewhere.”
That view is not shared by Trina Realmuto, the executive director at National Immigration Litigation Alliance, one of the groups who brought the class-action case. She told our consortium that “the decision is effective now, which means DHS cannot continue to apply its existing third-country removal policy”. However, she said that they “anticipate the government will seek Supreme Court review and could seek a stay of the decision while they do so.”
The Deportation Project: behind the investigation on Trump administration’s mass deportations
As part of a consortium of 26 media outlets coordinated by Forbidden Stories, RFI and FRANCE 24 spent six months investigating the secret deals struck between the administration of US President Donald Trump and several African countries. These “third countries” have agreed to host undocumented migrants detained by ICE and deported from the US.
From Ghana to Cameroon and Eswatini, our journalists spoke to the people deported to countries utterly unfamiliar to them.
Chilling effect
Removing people to third countries with almost no warning has also been used by the Trump administration to deter migration and encourage self-deportation, according to the lawyers and NGOs we spoke with.
“If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, you could end up in CECOT, Alligator Alcatraz, Guantanamo Bay, or South Sudan or another third country,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokeswoman, in August 2025, referencing the aforementioned Salvadoran prison and a now-closed detention centre in Florida.
“With countries like Palau or Eswatini, the point is that the Administration can threaten people that they will literally be dropped in the middle of nowhere,” a US official reportedly said, according to a report by Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Contacted by the consortium, the US Department of State said in a statement that they “will use all legal means” to remove individuals with no right to remain in the US and that “they do not comment on their private diplomatic communications with other governments”. At the time of publication, ICE had not responded to our questions.
The consortium also contacted the governments of the 35 countries that have concluded a deal with the US. The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the interior ministry reiterated that “Mexico has not signed an agreement with the United States” to receive foreign nationals, saying it was receiving these “individuals on humanitarian grounds". The Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied that an agreement had been signed with the US. At the time of publication, the other countries had not responded to our questions.
‘Threats of tariffs, visa bans or cuts to assistance’
The reasons why countries agree to accept these nationals often remain murky. Even when the agreements have been made public, the quid pro quos involved are rarely mentioned.
But according to documents obtained by the Washington Post as part of this project, the US has pledged more than $ 81 million (70 million euros) to 13 governments in connection with these agreements. This includes more than 15 million dollars (13 million euros) each for Guatemala and Honduras. The administration has pledged over five million dollars to six other countries – the Dominican Republic, Eswatini, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Palau and Rwanda.
It seems, however, that these concessions are also tied to broader geopolitical or economic interests – quid pro quos that can often only be inferred from secondary agreements made alongside the transfers. The report from Senate Democrats stresses that “deportation is being used as a bargaining chip", with third countries “being pressured with threats of tariffs, visa bans, or cuts to assistance".
In the case of Ghana, for example, the foreign minister admitted following the deal that US officials had raised potential visa and tariff concessions for his country. Just days after the agreement was announced, the US lifted the five-year visa restrictions it had imposed on Ghana two months earlier.
“I think that it's fair to say that everybody is running a little scared of the US,” Bocheneck said. “I think they all know that whatever goodwill they've got with the US right now is very tenuous, and everybody's trying to do whatever they can on the political side to keep the goodwill as long as possible.”
Additional reporting: Magdalena Hervada, Léa Péruchon, Sofía Álvarez Jurado (Forbidden Stories) and Karina Chabour.
INVESTIGATION
Since January 2025, the Trump administration has deported more than 25,000 people to so-called “third countries” – places that are not their countries of origin. Working with a team of 26 international media outlets, Forbidden Stories and FRANCE 24 have used information gathered by NGOs and open-source information to count and map these deportations. Our investigation shines a light on the scale of this mass deportation campaign that is being carried out under the cover of darkness.
Issued on: 21/09/2026 -
By:The FRANCE 24 Observers/
Lise KIENNEMANN
Forbidden Stories and FRANCE 24 have been working to document the scale of the Trump administration’s policy to deport people to third countries. © France Medias Monde graphic studio
Rabbiatu Kuyateh considers the United States her country: “I've known it as my home”, she said. It isn’t where she was born, however: she was born and raised in Sierra Leone but fled the civil war there in the 90s. She has now lived in the United States for more than 30 years and has raised her own family there. Kuyateh is a nurse and, throughout this time, she had a series of renewable work permits and never obtained permanent residency. “I worked hard, I paid my taxes,” she said.
But in early July 2025, she was detained during a routine appointment with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Baltimore, Maryland. After spending four months in detention, she learned that she was going to be deported to Ghana, more than 1,000 km from her country of origin.
“I said, ‘Ghana? I’m not from Ghana; what am I going to do there? I only saw Ghana on the map; I don’t know where that is, ” she told the consortium.
THE DEPORTATION PROJECT Deported to Africa: An international investigation into Trump’s migrant policy
More than 25,000 people have been expelled to third countries
Since Donald Trump took office in January 2025, more than 25,000 people have been deported to a country that is not their home country and with which they often have no ties, according to a count carried out by a team of 26 international media outlets led by Forbidden Stories. A large majority – 20,000 people – were deported to Mexico. Others – at least 5,447 people – had, by August 31, 2026, been taken on deportation flights and dropped all across the globe.
These “third-country removals” have become a core part of the Trump administration’s repressive migration policy. In recent months, they have been making an increasing number of deportation agreements with third countries, often under a cloak of secrecy.
There has been very little official communication about these deportations.
“At the beginning of the administration, they were really overt about the fact they're carrying out these flights. But over the past year, the government has been very opaque about these third-country transfers,” said Savi Arvey, director of Policy, Refugee & Immigrant Rights at the NGO Human Rights First.
To “shed light on these transfers”, the organisation relies on public flight-tracking data, as well as a network of NGOs, lawyers and on-the-ground sources. It shares its findings through the ICE Flight Monitor project, which monitors these deportation transfers, and the Third Country Deportation Watch tracker, developed with the NGO Refugees International.
Our investigation is based on their work, as well as that of the Human Rights Center at the University of Berkeley, freedom of information requests, and information gathered by journalists around the world and the lawyers of the people who have been deported. We were able to document a large number of these deportations and gather information on the number and nationality of those deported (see our methodology here).
Deportation agreements concluded with 35 countries on six continents
A total of 28 countries located on six different continents had received third-country deportees from the United States by August 31, 2026. The Trump administration had also concluded more deals enabling them to deport third-country citizens to seven other countries. (In the meantime, one of these countries, Guyana, received its first transfer of third-country citizens – six people from Cuba and Afghanistan who were transferred there in early September.)
For a better viewing experience on a large screen, expand the map.
Rabbiatu Kuyateh considers the United States her country: “I've known it as my home”, she said. It isn’t where she was born, however: she was born and raised in Sierra Leone but fled the civil war there in the 90s. She has now lived in the United States for more than 30 years and has raised her own family there. Kuyateh is a nurse and, throughout this time, she had a series of renewable work permits and never obtained permanent residency. “I worked hard, I paid my taxes,” she said.
But in early July 2025, she was detained during a routine appointment with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Baltimore, Maryland. After spending four months in detention, she learned that she was going to be deported to Ghana, more than 1,000 km from her country of origin.
“I said, ‘Ghana? I’m not from Ghana; what am I going to do there? I only saw Ghana on the map; I don’t know where that is, ” she told the consortium.
THE DEPORTATION PROJECT Deported to Africa: An international investigation into Trump’s migrant policy
More than 25,000 people have been expelled to third countries
Since Donald Trump took office in January 2025, more than 25,000 people have been deported to a country that is not their home country and with which they often have no ties, according to a count carried out by a team of 26 international media outlets led by Forbidden Stories. A large majority – 20,000 people – were deported to Mexico. Others – at least 5,447 people – had, by August 31, 2026, been taken on deportation flights and dropped all across the globe.
These “third-country removals” have become a core part of the Trump administration’s repressive migration policy. In recent months, they have been making an increasing number of deportation agreements with third countries, often under a cloak of secrecy.
There has been very little official communication about these deportations.
“At the beginning of the administration, they were really overt about the fact they're carrying out these flights. But over the past year, the government has been very opaque about these third-country transfers,” said Savi Arvey, director of Policy, Refugee & Immigrant Rights at the NGO Human Rights First.
To “shed light on these transfers”, the organisation relies on public flight-tracking data, as well as a network of NGOs, lawyers and on-the-ground sources. It shares its findings through the ICE Flight Monitor project, which monitors these deportation transfers, and the Third Country Deportation Watch tracker, developed with the NGO Refugees International.
Our investigation is based on their work, as well as that of the Human Rights Center at the University of Berkeley, freedom of information requests, and information gathered by journalists around the world and the lawyers of the people who have been deported. We were able to document a large number of these deportations and gather information on the number and nationality of those deported (see our methodology here).
Deportation agreements concluded with 35 countries on six continents
A total of 28 countries located on six different continents had received third-country deportees from the United States by August 31, 2026. The Trump administration had also concluded more deals enabling them to deport third-country citizens to seven other countries. (In the meantime, one of these countries, Guyana, received its first transfer of third-country citizens – six people from Cuba and Afghanistan who were transferred there in early September.)
More than 5,000 people removed on deportation flights
There have been roughly 20,000 non-Mexican nationals deported to Mexico, according to data gathered by Third-country Deportation Watch, despite the fact that there is no official agreement between the two countries. They were taken there by land routes.
The others – at least 5,447 people of 89 different nationalities – have been deported by flight. The number of flights varies depending on the country.
The second-largest number of third-country deportees were sent to Guatemala, just south of Mexico. Nearly 3,000 people have been deported there; 90% of them Mexican nationals. Four other Central American countries have also received more than 250 third-country deportees: Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama and El Salvador.
There have been roughly 20,000 non-Mexican nationals deported to Mexico, according to data gathered by Third-country Deportation Watch, despite the fact that there is no official agreement between the two countries. They were taken there by land routes.
The others – at least 5,447 people of 89 different nationalities – have been deported by flight. The number of flights varies depending on the country.
The second-largest number of third-country deportees were sent to Guatemala, just south of Mexico. Nearly 3,000 people have been deported there; 90% of them Mexican nationals. Four other Central American countries have also received more than 250 third-country deportees: Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama and El Salvador.
Deals with 13 African countries
But people haven’t just been deported to the Americas. “During the first Trump administration, there were agreements signed with Mexico and three Central American countries [Editor’s note: Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador],” said Arvey. “Now we're seeing that the US is going well beyond Mexico and Central America to countries in the Caribbean, countries throughout South America and countries across Africa and even in parts of Eastern Europe.”
Thirteen African nations, most in West or Central Africa, have signed third-country deportation deals with the United States – representing more than a third of the overall countries that have signed. Of them, 12 had already received third-country deportees by August 31, 2026, representing a total of 450 people. For the time being, Ghana is the African country that has received the largest number of individuals, with more than 100 people from third countries being sent there. The Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Eswatini have each received dozens of people.
Savi Arvey says that some of the agreements are being made with “countries that previously the United States did not look to partner with”, including “such a corrupt autocratic government like Equatorial Guinea”. “It seems like the goal for the United States is the deal. The profile of the country, its human rights record doesn't matter at all. ”
‘I had started a new life in the United States; I felt safe’
According to our count, the people who have been deported are from nearly 90 different countries, most from Africa or Central or South America.
Malick (not his real name) was on the same deportation flight as Rabbiatu. Born in Senegal, he came to the United States in 2023 after fleeing his country over fears about his safety. He obtained a work permit.
“I had started a new life in the United States,” he said. “I felt safe.”
Like Rabbiatu, Malick had been granted a “withholding of removal”, meaning that the United States government can’t deport you to your home country because your life or freedom would be threatened there.
The Trump administration has said on numerous occasions that they are targeting people with criminal records for deportation. In June 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that the policy would apply to “aliens who are so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won’t take them back, including convicted murderers, child rapists and drug traffickers".
But the reports published by different NGOs tell a different story, as do the interviews that our group carried out with 33 different people who have been deported.
“I did not commit any crime; I always abided by the law,” Kuyateh said. She’s far from the only one. Most of the people deported to African countries don’t have any criminal record, says Alma David, an American lawyer who represents dozens of deportees to Africa.
Furthermore, of the people deported to third countries who do have criminal records, many had already served their sentence – in many cases, years ago.
Poor treatment and arbitrary detention
While third country deportations are legal under US law, it is only under limited circumstances and when proper protocols have been followed to guarantee the person’s safety.
However, NGOs as well as lawyers representing the victims have been reporting on the human rights violations taking place during these transfers, including degrading treatment and arbitrary detention. In El Salvador, more than 250 men have been held in a high-security prison meant to house gangs, a place with “inhumane prison conditions", according to Human Rights Watch. The organisation also documented “constant beatings” and “cases of sexual violence".
Human rights organisations are also worried about the specific people who have been deported.
“What's been extremely worrying is the targeting of people who've been granted withholding and removal or protection under the Convention Against Torture for third-country removals, in particular to various countries in Africa, but also to Mexico,” Arvey said.
Historically, people with this legal status were generally not deported. But as part of its mass deportation campaign, the new Trump administration has started using third-country removals as a way to deport people without returning them to their home countries.
Like Malick and Rabbiatu, Soraya (not her real name) had this legal status. Soraya is Ghanaian; she fled to the United States in 2024 because of her sexual orientation. “Withholding of removal, it's protection,” she said. “I was thinking they were going to protect me rather than sending me to a third country that will not accept me. But they still brought me to Cameroon, an African country that doesn't accept LGBT.”
Fears are particularly centred on the risk of "chain refoulement” – in which individuals are removed to a third country only to be sent back to their home country, where they face persecution. “In many cases, what we have seen is they are very much sending people back to countries that US immigration judges have established are dangerous for them,” said Meredyth Yoon, a US-based lawyer who represents more than a dozen third-country nationals removed to African countries.
Isatou (not her real name), a Guinean who migrated to the US to flee a forced marriage, was removed to Ghana, and then sent back to her country of origin. For her safety, we won’t say where she is now. But a few months after her removal, she told the consortium she had no choice but to hide. “I don’t go out anymore, I’m scared of coming across my family,” she said. “They ruined my life.”
‘Indirect form of return to harm’
Michael Garcia Bocheneck, interim director of Human Rights Watch's US programme, said:
“We think the government is using third-country removals to avoid the responsibilities that it has under international law not to return people to harm. (...) In many cases, it seems that the tacit assumption is that the third country will simply return them to their home country anyway. It's an indirect form of return to harm, and it's still a violation of international law.”
Carolyn Patty Blum, Clinical Professor of Law Emerita at UC Berkeley School of Law, said that in accordance with the non-refoulement principle – “a defining principle” of international law –, “no one should be forced to return to any country where they face a risk of persecution, human rights violations or torture". “Both the United States and the receiving countries violate that law by transferring people to places where they face serious risk of harm.”
Many of the deals include blanket language on ensuring migrants are not arbitrarily detained or sent to another country where they could face persecution. But the “stated ‘assurances’ of protection in the receiving country are inadequate", said Blum, who also pointed to the absence of “any methods of ongoing oversight” once the individual is outside the US.
Moreover, while some of the deals (known as “Asylum Cooperative Agreements”) include guarantees that transferred individuals can request asylum in the receiving country, other arrangements (called “Third-Country Removal Agreements”) offer no such protections. “What's been so concerning in this case is that often there's a reference to just transit,” Arvey said. “It’s very overt that the country understands that it will just serve as a transfer point. So it raises huge concerns about refoulement.”
Human rights advocates have repeatedly denounced the DHS policy of deporting individuals with little to no notice – leaving them with no real chance to contest their removal if they fear for their safety in the receiving country. On September 18, 2026, a US federal appeals court ruled that removing individuals to third countries without giving them a meaningful opportunity to raise fears of torture or persecution is illegal. The court also rejected the Trump administration's argument that general human rights assurances from third countries are sufficient.
DHS General Counsel James Percival said shortly after the decision that the ruling will not prevent “the third country deportation policy” from “continuing”. “If you claim fear in your home country, DHS has the right to send you elsewhere.”
That view is not shared by Trina Realmuto, the executive director at National Immigration Litigation Alliance, one of the groups who brought the class-action case. She told our consortium that “the decision is effective now, which means DHS cannot continue to apply its existing third-country removal policy”. However, she said that they “anticipate the government will seek Supreme Court review and could seek a stay of the decision while they do so.”
The Deportation Project: behind the investigation on Trump administration’s mass deportations
As part of a consortium of 26 media outlets coordinated by Forbidden Stories, RFI and FRANCE 24 spent six months investigating the secret deals struck between the administration of US President Donald Trump and several African countries. These “third countries” have agreed to host undocumented migrants detained by ICE and deported from the US.
From Ghana to Cameroon and Eswatini, our journalists spoke to the people deported to countries utterly unfamiliar to them.
Chilling effect
Removing people to third countries with almost no warning has also been used by the Trump administration to deter migration and encourage self-deportation, according to the lawyers and NGOs we spoke with.
“If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, you could end up in CECOT, Alligator Alcatraz, Guantanamo Bay, or South Sudan or another third country,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokeswoman, in August 2025, referencing the aforementioned Salvadoran prison and a now-closed detention centre in Florida.
“With countries like Palau or Eswatini, the point is that the Administration can threaten people that they will literally be dropped in the middle of nowhere,” a US official reportedly said, according to a report by Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Contacted by the consortium, the US Department of State said in a statement that they “will use all legal means” to remove individuals with no right to remain in the US and that “they do not comment on their private diplomatic communications with other governments”. At the time of publication, ICE had not responded to our questions.
The consortium also contacted the governments of the 35 countries that have concluded a deal with the US. The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the interior ministry reiterated that “Mexico has not signed an agreement with the United States” to receive foreign nationals, saying it was receiving these “individuals on humanitarian grounds". The Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied that an agreement had been signed with the US. At the time of publication, the other countries had not responded to our questions.
‘Threats of tariffs, visa bans or cuts to assistance’
The reasons why countries agree to accept these nationals often remain murky. Even when the agreements have been made public, the quid pro quos involved are rarely mentioned.
But according to documents obtained by the Washington Post as part of this project, the US has pledged more than $ 81 million (70 million euros) to 13 governments in connection with these agreements. This includes more than 15 million dollars (13 million euros) each for Guatemala and Honduras. The administration has pledged over five million dollars to six other countries – the Dominican Republic, Eswatini, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Palau and Rwanda.
It seems, however, that these concessions are also tied to broader geopolitical or economic interests – quid pro quos that can often only be inferred from secondary agreements made alongside the transfers. The report from Senate Democrats stresses that “deportation is being used as a bargaining chip", with third countries “being pressured with threats of tariffs, visa bans, or cuts to assistance".
In the case of Ghana, for example, the foreign minister admitted following the deal that US officials had raised potential visa and tariff concessions for his country. Just days after the agreement was announced, the US lifted the five-year visa restrictions it had imposed on Ghana two months earlier.
“I think that it's fair to say that everybody is running a little scared of the US,” Bocheneck said. “I think they all know that whatever goodwill they've got with the US right now is very tenuous, and everybody's trying to do whatever they can on the political side to keep the goodwill as long as possible.”
Additional reporting: Magdalena Hervada, Léa Péruchon, Sofía Álvarez Jurado (Forbidden Stories) and Karina Chabour.
Investigation: In Cameroon, the victims of Trump’s deportations face uncertain fates
Under often-secret deals struck with third countries across Africa and Latin America, US President Donald Trump has deported thousands of people who were hoping to build new lives in the US to countries they’ve never set foot in before. Working with Forbidden Stories, FRANCE 24 investigated the stories of several African migrants whose lives were thrown into chaos by their abrupt deportation from the US to a temporary shelter in Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé.
Issued on: 21/09/2026 -
Under often-secret deals struck with third countries across Africa and Latin America, US President Donald Trump has deported thousands of people who were hoping to build new lives in the US to countries they’ve never set foot in before. Working with Forbidden Stories, FRANCE 24 investigated the stories of several African migrants whose lives were thrown into chaos by their abrupt deportation from the US to a temporary shelter in Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé.
Issued on: 21/09/2026 -
FRANCE24
By: David RICH
‘They put me on a plane, and I landed here’
Born in the state of Tigray in the north of Ethiopia, Barbara left her country after war broke out between federal government forces and the region’s Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The conflict is believed to have killed more than 600,000 people between 2020 and 2024.
Fleeing persecution, she travelled to Brazil at the end of 2024 before making her way to the US border by bus. The young woman was detained by border police on arrival and sent to an immigration detention centre in Louisiana.
Several months later, a judge granted her “withholding of removal”, a legal protection distinct from asylum that nonetheless prevents recipients from being deported to their home country on the grounds that they would more likely than not face persecution.
Despite this measure, Barbara would remain in the detention centre for several more months – until she was abruptly bundled on board a flight to Cameroon on April 28, 2026.
“Police came to get me and told me I had to go back,” she said. “I was so shocked. They put me on a plane and I landed here.”
Within the walls of the Yaoundé migrant centre, people from almost a dozen African countries – Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe – all have similar stories.
Soraya* said she fled Ghana after her family found out about her sexual orientation.
“In Accra, people I know are looking for me,” she said. “They want me dead.”
Soraya had also been granted a protection measure in the US – before being deported without warning.
Legal loopholes
To be granted “withholding of removal” in the US, an applicant must show that they have more than a 50 percent risk of suffering persecution in their home country for reasons of race, religion, nationality, belonging to a particular social group or for their political beliefs.
But this protection does nothing to prevent recipients from being deported to countries deemed “safe” – that is to say, where deportees wouldn’t be exposed to the same risk of persecution that they would in their homeland.
The administration of US President Donald Trump has wasted no time in launching itself at this loophole. Having promised to bring an end to what he describes as an “invasion” of migrants, Trump has struck a number of bilateral agreements with what have been dubbed "third countries".
The “temporary migrant shelter” in Yaoundé. © Forbidden Stories
The aim is clear: to expel migrants who are legally protected from being deported to their home countries, and to send a warning to those hoping to follow in their footsteps.
“It’s precisely because these people have been granted this protection in the United States that they are sent here,” said Cameroonian lawyer Joseph Awah Fru, who provides legal assistance to migrants deported to Yaoundé. “The US needed a ‘blank-slate’ country.”
Secret deals
More than 35 “deals” have been signed so far, the majority of which have been struck with Latin American countries, like Mexico, Panama, El Salvador and Costa Rica, or African states including Cameroon, Ghana, Sierra Leone, DR Congo, Eswatini, the Central African Republic and Equatorial Guinea. These agreements have facilitated the deportation of more than 25,000 people.
But while the Trump administration has been stepping up the rate of deportations, the actual content of many of these agreements remains shrouded in mystery.
“Most of these are secret agreements that governments have not submitted to Parliament for approval,” said Beatrice Njeri, a Kenyan lawyer and a member of a coalition defending the rights of deportees. “There is neither openness nor transparency.”
She said that deportees often found themselves isolated in these third countries.
“They are being held in quasi-military conditions, treated as prisoners,” she said. “They usually have very limited access to a lawyer, so that they can find out what options are available to them, because governments want to force them to return to their home countries – despite the danger.”
In the case of Cameroon, the only publicly available document confirming the deal is an exchange of diplomatic notes that took place in December 2025, published in June by the US State Department.
Document : communiqué from the US embassy in Cameroon
As outlined in the note, both Yaoundé and Washington undertook to “arrange the transfer from the United States to the Republic of Cameroon of certain third-country nationals present in the United States”.
For its part, Cameroon agreed to treat these deportees in a manner consistent with its obligations under international law, and assured that they would not be subjected to persecution or torture, either in Cameroon or in any country that Yaoundé would send them on to.
The actual terms of the deal are still opaque. According to an investigation by the New York Times, the agreement appears to have been reached after Washington directly imposed financial pressure on the Central African country.
The US reportedly threatened to suspend a payment of some $30 million intended for the country office of the UN Refugee Agency. The payment finally went through on January 9 – six days before a plane carrying the first deportees from Louisiana touched down in the country.
A US government website said that the funding was intended “in support of third-country national arrangement negotiations”.
The UN refugee agency denied that the funds were earmarked for the resettlement of deportees, insisting that the money would be “allocated and used in accordance with its mandate”.
A source close to the Cameroonian government confirmed to FRANCE 24 that an agreement had been reached between Washington and Yaoundé, apparently negotiated by President Paul Biya himself, before the first deportations took place. The president's office did not respond to requests for comment.
The source said that the deal, which was struck in total secrecy, was meant to “improve” the relationship between both countries and strengthen cooperation on the economic and security fronts.
At the end of August, the two countries held an inaugural “US-Cameroon Bilateral Economic and Commercial Dialogue” in Yaoundé. During the event, the US announced an investment of $7 billion in Cameroonian industries ranging from tech, critical minerals, infrastructure and energy.
The Deportation Project: behind the investigation on Trump administration’s mass deportations
As part of a consortium of 26 media outlets coordinated by Forbidden Stories, RFI and FRANCE 24 spent six months investigating the secret deals struck between the administration of US President Donald Trump and several African countries. These “third countries” have agreed to host undocumented migrants detained by ICE and deported from the US.
From Ghana to Cameroon and Eswatini, our journalists spoke to the people deported to countries utterly unfamiliar to them.
Deported without documents
In Yaoundé, the deportees allege they were stripped of their passports by US authorities, who have held onto them since their departure.
“When we arrived, we weren’t allowed to leave the centre,” said Soraya, who was on the first flight that landed in Cameroon on January 15. “We were treated like criminals.”
Unable to move around freely, some of the deportees took drastic measures – to little result.
“We decided to go on a hunger strike in protest, and that’s why they said they were going to give us identity documents that would allow us to move around freely,” she said. “But they only gave us a piece of paper valid for just two months that we could show if we were stopped by police.”
“The migrants are housed and fed, but they have no money,” Awah Fru said. “They can leave the centre, but the authorities warned them that they would not be held responsible if something happened to them. Their freedom has been violated.”
The source close to the Cameroonian government defended the measures.
“When you don’t have your papers in a country, you are required to restrict your movements,” they said.
For weeks now, Awah Fru has been making frequent visits to the centre to try to ensure the deportees’ rights are upheld. On August 5, the lawyer lodged an appeal on behalf of 36 migrants deported to Cameroon between January and May 2026 with the Yaoundé Administrative Court. He is seeking to suspend the agreement with the United States on the grounds that the deportations put them at risk of persecution and torture.
“From the moment that Cameroon agreed to welcome these people onto its territory, it has the responsibility to protect them like refugees,” he said. It’s a campaign that the lawyer has waged by himself – and not an easy one.
Constant pressure
During his first visit to the centre on February 17, Awah Fru and the four journalists accompanying him were briefly detained by the judicial police – an act that only deepened the climate of fear among the deportees, who largely refuse all contact with the media.
While in detention, the journalists were forced to delete the videos they had recorded and were warned by the police not to do any more work on the story. The source close to the government described their detention as “an unfortunate incident by a handful of overzealous police”.
“There’s no omerta around this case,” they insisted.
Despite these assurances, the Cameroonian government still hasn’t responded to FRANCE 24’s application for a media visa, submitted for this investigation.
Because of this, the testimonies of the deportees had to be recorded remotely.
The source close to the government insisted that Cameroon was a “welcoming country” where the deportees “are treated well”. The migrants have reportedly been visited by multiple officials from the justice and foreign affairs ministries.
They have also met with representatives from the UN Refugee Agency and the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
'Deportation machine': How Donald Trump and ICE are changing America
The latter agency plays a crucial role in the lives of those held in the detention centre – particularly those who decide to return to their home countries.
“The IOM representatives don’t tell us that they’re going to force us to return to our home countries, but that they can help us if we wish to do so,” one of the deportees said. “The government representatives, on the other hand, tell us that we must return to our home countries.”
“Where someone asks us to help them return to their country of origin, or to another country where they have the legal right to stay, we do so only after individualised counselling and protection screening,” the agency said in a statement, adding that the decision needed to be “freely” made.
“Our commitment in no way constitutes an endorsement of the decisions that led to the deportation of these people,” a spokesperson added.
‘They’re just waiting for us to crack’
Despite the difficult situation they’ve been put in, both Barbara and Soraya hope that with their lawyer’s help they can be granted asylum in Cameroon.
“I’ve heard there are human rights issues here,” Barbara said. “But if I go back to my country, I know what will happen – I have no choice.”
“Here, we wake up and each day is like the day before it,” Soraya said. “We have to beg for everything – they’re just waiting for us to crack and agree to go home. But most of us can’t go home. That’s true for me too, even though I know Cameroon isn’t any safer for me.”
In a grim irony, Soraya has been deported to a country where the laws against homosexuality are even more repressive than in her homeland. Homosexual acts are punishable by up to five years in prison in Cameroon, compared with three years in Ghana.
Among the first deportees sent to Cameroon, two other women – both from Morocco – were like Soraya and granted protection measures in the US due to their sexual orientation. Both women decided to return to their home country despite the risks, choosing to live in hiding rather than remain locked up in a strange land.
Gisèle, another deportee in the centre who fled the fighting between the DR Congo and Rwanda, has abandoned her plans to seek asylum in Cameroon for health reasons. Suffering from a thyroid condition, she has never been able to obtain her medication at the centre in Yaoundé, despite her repeated requests.
Worried that her health would only get worse, she finally agreed to be sent back to the DR Congo after five months behind the centre’s walls.
*Names have been changed at the interviewees’ request.
This article has been adapted from the original in French by Paul Millar.
At least 44 people from more across Africa have been deported from the US to Cameroon – a country to which they have no connection. © Studio graphique FMM
“Welcome to the temporary migrant shelter.” In a residential neighbourhood in the Cameroonian capital of Yaoundé, a government compound has been transformed into a place for people with nowhere else to go.
Behind its high clay-coloured walls, 20-odd people share dorm rooms sparsely furnished with bunk beds.
Several days after her arrival, Barbara* is still struggling to get her bearings.
“I feel really bad, I have no family here, I don’t know anyone, and most people only speak French,” she said in English.
The young woman had fled persecution in her homeland Ethiopia to the US, hoping to build a new life for herself. But in April this year, she was deported without warning by US immigration authorities to the Central African country of Cameroon, a country utterly unknown to her.
“Welcome to the temporary migrant shelter.” In a residential neighbourhood in the Cameroonian capital of Yaoundé, a government compound has been transformed into a place for people with nowhere else to go.
Behind its high clay-coloured walls, 20-odd people share dorm rooms sparsely furnished with bunk beds.
Several days after her arrival, Barbara* is still struggling to get her bearings.
“I feel really bad, I have no family here, I don’t know anyone, and most people only speak French,” she said in English.
The young woman had fled persecution in her homeland Ethiopia to the US, hoping to build a new life for herself. But in April this year, she was deported without warning by US immigration authorities to the Central African country of Cameroon, a country utterly unknown to her.
‘They put me on a plane, and I landed here’
Born in the state of Tigray in the north of Ethiopia, Barbara left her country after war broke out between federal government forces and the region’s Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The conflict is believed to have killed more than 600,000 people between 2020 and 2024.
Fleeing persecution, she travelled to Brazil at the end of 2024 before making her way to the US border by bus. The young woman was detained by border police on arrival and sent to an immigration detention centre in Louisiana.
Several months later, a judge granted her “withholding of removal”, a legal protection distinct from asylum that nonetheless prevents recipients from being deported to their home country on the grounds that they would more likely than not face persecution.
Despite this measure, Barbara would remain in the detention centre for several more months – until she was abruptly bundled on board a flight to Cameroon on April 28, 2026.
“Police came to get me and told me I had to go back,” she said. “I was so shocked. They put me on a plane and I landed here.”
Within the walls of the Yaoundé migrant centre, people from almost a dozen African countries – Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe – all have similar stories.
Soraya* said she fled Ghana after her family found out about her sexual orientation.
“In Accra, people I know are looking for me,” she said. “They want me dead.”
Soraya had also been granted a protection measure in the US – before being deported without warning.
Legal loopholes
To be granted “withholding of removal” in the US, an applicant must show that they have more than a 50 percent risk of suffering persecution in their home country for reasons of race, religion, nationality, belonging to a particular social group or for their political beliefs.
But this protection does nothing to prevent recipients from being deported to countries deemed “safe” – that is to say, where deportees wouldn’t be exposed to the same risk of persecution that they would in their homeland.
The administration of US President Donald Trump has wasted no time in launching itself at this loophole. Having promised to bring an end to what he describes as an “invasion” of migrants, Trump has struck a number of bilateral agreements with what have been dubbed "third countries".
The “temporary migrant shelter” in Yaoundé. © Forbidden StoriesThe aim is clear: to expel migrants who are legally protected from being deported to their home countries, and to send a warning to those hoping to follow in their footsteps.
“It’s precisely because these people have been granted this protection in the United States that they are sent here,” said Cameroonian lawyer Joseph Awah Fru, who provides legal assistance to migrants deported to Yaoundé. “The US needed a ‘blank-slate’ country.”
Secret deals
More than 35 “deals” have been signed so far, the majority of which have been struck with Latin American countries, like Mexico, Panama, El Salvador and Costa Rica, or African states including Cameroon, Ghana, Sierra Leone, DR Congo, Eswatini, the Central African Republic and Equatorial Guinea. These agreements have facilitated the deportation of more than 25,000 people.
But while the Trump administration has been stepping up the rate of deportations, the actual content of many of these agreements remains shrouded in mystery.
“Most of these are secret agreements that governments have not submitted to Parliament for approval,” said Beatrice Njeri, a Kenyan lawyer and a member of a coalition defending the rights of deportees. “There is neither openness nor transparency.”
She said that deportees often found themselves isolated in these third countries.
“They are being held in quasi-military conditions, treated as prisoners,” she said. “They usually have very limited access to a lawyer, so that they can find out what options are available to them, because governments want to force them to return to their home countries – despite the danger.”
In the case of Cameroon, the only publicly available document confirming the deal is an exchange of diplomatic notes that took place in December 2025, published in June by the US State Department.
Document : communiqué from the US embassy in Cameroon
As outlined in the note, both Yaoundé and Washington undertook to “arrange the transfer from the United States to the Republic of Cameroon of certain third-country nationals present in the United States”.
For its part, Cameroon agreed to treat these deportees in a manner consistent with its obligations under international law, and assured that they would not be subjected to persecution or torture, either in Cameroon or in any country that Yaoundé would send them on to.
The actual terms of the deal are still opaque. According to an investigation by the New York Times, the agreement appears to have been reached after Washington directly imposed financial pressure on the Central African country.
The US reportedly threatened to suspend a payment of some $30 million intended for the country office of the UN Refugee Agency. The payment finally went through on January 9 – six days before a plane carrying the first deportees from Louisiana touched down in the country.
A US government website said that the funding was intended “in support of third-country national arrangement negotiations”.
The UN refugee agency denied that the funds were earmarked for the resettlement of deportees, insisting that the money would be “allocated and used in accordance with its mandate”.
A source close to the Cameroonian government confirmed to FRANCE 24 that an agreement had been reached between Washington and Yaoundé, apparently negotiated by President Paul Biya himself, before the first deportations took place. The president's office did not respond to requests for comment.
The source said that the deal, which was struck in total secrecy, was meant to “improve” the relationship between both countries and strengthen cooperation on the economic and security fronts.
At the end of August, the two countries held an inaugural “US-Cameroon Bilateral Economic and Commercial Dialogue” in Yaoundé. During the event, the US announced an investment of $7 billion in Cameroonian industries ranging from tech, critical minerals, infrastructure and energy.
The Deportation Project: behind the investigation on Trump administration’s mass deportations
As part of a consortium of 26 media outlets coordinated by Forbidden Stories, RFI and FRANCE 24 spent six months investigating the secret deals struck between the administration of US President Donald Trump and several African countries. These “third countries” have agreed to host undocumented migrants detained by ICE and deported from the US.
From Ghana to Cameroon and Eswatini, our journalists spoke to the people deported to countries utterly unfamiliar to them.
Deported without documents
In Yaoundé, the deportees allege they were stripped of their passports by US authorities, who have held onto them since their departure.
“When we arrived, we weren’t allowed to leave the centre,” said Soraya, who was on the first flight that landed in Cameroon on January 15. “We were treated like criminals.”
Unable to move around freely, some of the deportees took drastic measures – to little result.
“We decided to go on a hunger strike in protest, and that’s why they said they were going to give us identity documents that would allow us to move around freely,” she said. “But they only gave us a piece of paper valid for just two months that we could show if we were stopped by police.”
“The migrants are housed and fed, but they have no money,” Awah Fru said. “They can leave the centre, but the authorities warned them that they would not be held responsible if something happened to them. Their freedom has been violated.”
The source close to the Cameroonian government defended the measures.
“When you don’t have your papers in a country, you are required to restrict your movements,” they said.
For weeks now, Awah Fru has been making frequent visits to the centre to try to ensure the deportees’ rights are upheld. On August 5, the lawyer lodged an appeal on behalf of 36 migrants deported to Cameroon between January and May 2026 with the Yaoundé Administrative Court. He is seeking to suspend the agreement with the United States on the grounds that the deportations put them at risk of persecution and torture.
“From the moment that Cameroon agreed to welcome these people onto its territory, it has the responsibility to protect them like refugees,” he said. It’s a campaign that the lawyer has waged by himself – and not an easy one.
Constant pressure
During his first visit to the centre on February 17, Awah Fru and the four journalists accompanying him were briefly detained by the judicial police – an act that only deepened the climate of fear among the deportees, who largely refuse all contact with the media.
While in detention, the journalists were forced to delete the videos they had recorded and were warned by the police not to do any more work on the story. The source close to the government described their detention as “an unfortunate incident by a handful of overzealous police”.
“There’s no omerta around this case,” they insisted.
Despite these assurances, the Cameroonian government still hasn’t responded to FRANCE 24’s application for a media visa, submitted for this investigation.
Because of this, the testimonies of the deportees had to be recorded remotely.
The source close to the government insisted that Cameroon was a “welcoming country” where the deportees “are treated well”. The migrants have reportedly been visited by multiple officials from the justice and foreign affairs ministries.
They have also met with representatives from the UN Refugee Agency and the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
'Deportation machine': How Donald Trump and ICE are changing America
Cover image: 'Deportation machine': How Donald Trump and ICE are changing America
© AFP
17:30
17:30
The latter agency plays a crucial role in the lives of those held in the detention centre – particularly those who decide to return to their home countries.
“The IOM representatives don’t tell us that they’re going to force us to return to our home countries, but that they can help us if we wish to do so,” one of the deportees said. “The government representatives, on the other hand, tell us that we must return to our home countries.”
“Where someone asks us to help them return to their country of origin, or to another country where they have the legal right to stay, we do so only after individualised counselling and protection screening,” the agency said in a statement, adding that the decision needed to be “freely” made.
“Our commitment in no way constitutes an endorsement of the decisions that led to the deportation of these people,” a spokesperson added.
‘They’re just waiting for us to crack’
Despite the difficult situation they’ve been put in, both Barbara and Soraya hope that with their lawyer’s help they can be granted asylum in Cameroon.
“I’ve heard there are human rights issues here,” Barbara said. “But if I go back to my country, I know what will happen – I have no choice.”
“Here, we wake up and each day is like the day before it,” Soraya said. “We have to beg for everything – they’re just waiting for us to crack and agree to go home. But most of us can’t go home. That’s true for me too, even though I know Cameroon isn’t any safer for me.”
In a grim irony, Soraya has been deported to a country where the laws against homosexuality are even more repressive than in her homeland. Homosexual acts are punishable by up to five years in prison in Cameroon, compared with three years in Ghana.
Among the first deportees sent to Cameroon, two other women – both from Morocco – were like Soraya and granted protection measures in the US due to their sexual orientation. Both women decided to return to their home country despite the risks, choosing to live in hiding rather than remain locked up in a strange land.
Gisèle, another deportee in the centre who fled the fighting between the DR Congo and Rwanda, has abandoned her plans to seek asylum in Cameroon for health reasons. Suffering from a thyroid condition, she has never been able to obtain her medication at the centre in Yaoundé, despite her repeated requests.
Worried that her health would only get worse, she finally agreed to be sent back to the DR Congo after five months behind the centre’s walls.
*Names have been changed at the interviewees’ request.
This article has been adapted from the original in French by Paul Millar.
The Deportation Project: our full coverage
Deported to Africa: An international investigation into Trump’s migrant policy
‘Waiting for us to crack’: In Cameroon, the victims of Trump’s deportations face uncertain fates
Interactive map: Third-country removals - Trump’s deportation policy by the numbers
Scrollytelling: Flight to Ghana - Expelled From the US to a Country They’d Never Been to (coming soon)
‘I had never heard of Eswatini’: Deported to a country that rejects them (coming soon)
Deported to Africa: An international investigation into Trump’s migrant policy
‘Waiting for us to crack’: In Cameroon, the victims of Trump’s deportations face uncertain fates
Interactive map: Third-country removals - Trump’s deportation policy by the numbers
Scrollytelling: Flight to Ghana - Expelled From the US to a Country They’d Never Been to (coming soon)
‘I had never heard of Eswatini’: Deported to a country that rejects them (coming soon)
BY: Karina CHABOUR
