UN experts urge halt to US deportations to third countries over rights risks

UN human rights experts called on Monday for the United States and receiving governments to halt arrangements that send migrants and asylum seekers to countries they are not from. The experts warned that the transfers expose people to torture, persecution and other serious abuses, making the safety of those already removed an immediate concern.

The experts said the US had sent at least 23,000 third-country nationals to 29 countries and territories. They had contacted the US and governments in 35 countries and territories with which Washington had entered transfer agreements as of June 2026. The two numbers measure different things: the first describes destinations the experts say received people, while the second counts governments contacted about agreements.

What the experts warned about

In their statement, the experts described a ‘cascade of human rights violations’ and said transfers increased risks of torture, ill-treatment and enforced disappearance. They also listed arbitrary or incommunicado detention, inadequate access to lawyers, denial of due process, family separation, trafficking and lack of healthcare among the potential consequences. The statement sets out risks and alleged patterns; it does not document every listed harm in every destination.

The experts said people can be transferred to places where they have no family, citizenship or other ties. Some receiving states, they warned, lack asylum procedures or the services needed to protect new arrivals. A transfer may also be followed by removal to another country, including one where a person fears persecution. The experts said pressure to return home could make an apparently voluntary return coercive.

What is known about the scale

The experts’ count of at least 23,000 people is their estimate, reported by Reuters, rather than an independently audited total in the material available. A separate tracker maintained by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants estimated more than 22,000 people deported to at least 26 countries as of August 2026. The organisation says its tracker draws on public government data, court records and reporting, and may miss some countries or agreements.

The Guardian reported a different breakdown, citing Refugees International and Human Rights First for an estimate of about 20,000 people taken by bus to Mexico and reporting more than 5,000 others flown to destinations across several regions. Those route figures should not be added to the experts’ total: the accounts use different categories and methods, and the available reporting does not reconcile them.

The policy has expanded since Donald Trump returned to office in 2025. USCRI says third-country deportations have been pursued systematically since February of that year and describes cases involving limited notice or opportunity to contest a destination. Its tracker is an advocacy organisation’s synthesis of public material, which provides context for the practice without independently proving each harm in Monday’s warning.

Accounts, responses and next steps

The Guardian reported individual accounts from an investigation with journalists coordinated by Forbidden Stories, including an Iranian woman who sought safety after protesting against Iran’s government and a gay Ghanaian man who fled threats from relatives. Beatrice Njeri, a lawyer with the Global Strategic Litigation Council, told the Guardian that two men expelled to Equatorial Guinea had been bound, hooded and beaten. Those are attributed accounts, not findings adjudicated in the material reviewed.

Reuters reported that rights groups had raised concerns about treatment in Equatorial Guinea and about Iranian deportees sent to the Central African Republic. It said the US diplomatic mission to the UN in Geneva did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Washington had previously defended the agreements as lawful and said deportations complied with US immigration law; that earlier position was not a response to Monday’s statement.

The experts argued that neither the US nor receiving states can transfer away their duties under human rights and refugee law through bilateral or financial agreements. They called for the arrangements to stop, fair asylum procedures to be restored, and independent monitoring and accountability. Their statement said UN Special Procedures were in contact with the US, the 35 governments and territories concerned, UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration. The available accounts contain no new response from receiving governments.

The immediate question is how governments will respond to the experts’ call and whether people already transferred can obtain effective protection and legal review. The statement establishes the experts’ warning and the scale they cite; it does not itself resolve the legal disputes or provide a complete public accounting of each agreement and transfer.