Human Rights Watch says US deportations to African countries put people at risk

Human Rights Watch said on October 8, 2026, that the United States had sent more than 500 people to African countries where they had no ties, leaving some facing detention or onward removal to places where they risk harm. The Washington-based rights group said people transferred under the third-country deportation policy lacked a meaningful chance to challenge where they were sent. The US Department of Homeland Security defended the removals as a public safety tool.

What the Human Rights Watch report found

In its 125-page report, Human Rights Watch said the people it examined could not be returned to their countries of origin because of the danger they faced there. It alleges that US authorities transferred more than 500 people to other African countries without giving them a meaningful opportunity to explain their fears about those destinations. The figure and the legal assessment are the group's findings; the available reporting does not establish an independently audited total or a final court ruling on the policy's overall legality.

The group interviewed 24 people transferred from the US to Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini and South Sudan. The interviews were conducted remotely and, in some cases, in person between February and July 2026. Those accounts offer detail about individual journeys, but a sample of 24 cannot establish what happened to every person sent under the policy.

Interviewees described being shackled during deportation flights, sometimes for at least 18 hours, and receiving little or no information about their destination, according to Human Rights Watch. The group said some people could not access medication they needed. It also found that some receiving countries detained deportees and that some people were sent onward to home countries where they faced a risk of persecution or torture. Those are the group's documented accounts and conclusions, rather than a known outcome for every deportee.

What is known about deportations to Eswatini

An independently reported case illustrates how a transfer could continue after arrival. The Associated Press reported on October 4 that Phone Chomsavanh, a Lao national, had been released after more than a year in prison in Eswatini and was being deported to Laos, according to his US-based lawyer, Tin Thanh Nguyen. AP said Chomsavanh was among five immigrants sent to Eswatini in July 2025, despite having no ties there, after serving their US sentences. An Eswatini government spokesperson had not immediately acknowledged his release when AP reported it.

The BBC reported that Eswatini subsequently said three people from Yemen, Belize and Laos had recently 'voluntarily departed' for their home countries. Eswatini said it was committed to protecting the rights, dignity and well-being of third-country nationals. Its description of those departures does not, by itself, resolve Human Rights Watch's concern that some deportees had no practical safe option other than returning home.

How the US government responds

In a statement to the BBC, the Department of Homeland Security called third-country removals an essential public safety tool for removing people it described as dangerous criminal undocumented immigrants. It said Immigration and Customs Enforcement receives diplomatic assurances from destination countries that those removed will be safe. DHS also said ICE is no longer responsible for a person after that person leaves its custody. AP separately reported the US government's explanation that the programme can remove people with final deportation orders when their home countries may not promptly accept them.

Michael Garcia Bochenek, Human Rights Watch's interim US programme director, said sending people to countries where they had never lived was part of a policy designed to cause suffering as a deterrent to migration. That is the group's assessment of the policy's purpose. The BBC said none of the African countries named in the report had commented on its findings by the time of its publication. Their responses, and the terms of all the transfer arrangements, remain unresolved in the available reporting.

What happens next for the deportation policy

Human Rights Watch has called on African governments to suspend or end the arrangements and on the US to suspend third-country removals until the policies driving them are reversed. The report adds to earlier warnings about the risks of sending people to countries where they have no connection. Whether governments change the arrangements, and where each deportee ultimately remains, is not established by the report or the responses available so far.