Human Rights Watch: "To Scare People": US Expulsions of Third-Country Nationals to Countries in Africa

From a press release from Human Rights Watch:

US: Deportations to African Countries Not Their Own
Denied Due Process; Some Returned to Danger in Home Countries

• The United States has sent more than 500 people whom it cannot deport to their own countries, because of the danger they would face, there to various countries in Africa where they have no connections, without giving them a meaningful chance to contest their removals to these countries.
• Some of the people have been detained upon arrival. Many, if not most, have been left with no practical option but to return to their home countries regardless of the harm they face there.
• The United States should stop deporting asylum seekers and refugees to third countries that lack the capacity to provide full and fair asylum procedures, and these countries should refuse to receive people under these conditions.

(Washington, DC, October 8, 2026) – The Trump administration is sending hundreds of people who can’t be deported to their own countries, because of the danger they would face, to African countries where they have no connections, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Many have been left with no practical option but to return to their home countries regardless of the harm they face there.

The 125-page report, “‘To Scare People’: US Expulsions of Third-Country Nationals to Countries in Africa,” documents that US authorities denied the more than 500 people transferred to third countries a meaningful chance to contest their removals or to articulate their fears of being removed to these countries. 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, violating the international law principle of nonrefoulement.

“‘To Scare People’: US Expulsions of Third-Country Nationals to Countries in Africa”