ICE deports Afghans and others to Africa, expanding “third country” deportations
Three Flights, Eight African Nations: Inside Washington's Widening Deportation Pipeline
Wertynews.com – In a span of roughly ten days, U.S. immigration authorities dispatched more than 100 people — men and women stripped of their right to remain in American soil — to destinations spanning the African continent. The recipients of these arrivals included Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Liberia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone. What makes the operation striking is not merely its scale but its geography: not a single deportee on those flights hailed from the country where he or she was ultimately deposited.
The passengers carried nationalities from Afghanistan, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Nepal, Turkey, and Venezuela, alongside African nationals whose home countries differed from the nations that received them. Internal government paperwork, previously unreported, lays out the logistics of three separate Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights that shuttled these individuals across oceans to places with which they share no familial, cultural, or historical connection.
A Policy Built on Secrecy and Distance
The flights represent the latest escalation in what Washington calls "third country" deportation — a framework under which the United States ships out non-citizens who cannot or will not return to their country of origin, instead placing them in a third nation that has agreed to take them in. More than 30 countries worldwide have signed on to receive such deportees. Latin American participants include Costa Rica, Panama, and Paraguay. Yet the African cohort has grown rapidly, with nations such as the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan brokering their own acceptance deals.
The agreements themselves remain largely opaque to the public. Available details suggest that some African signatories, including Ghana and Sierra Leone, have limited their commitments to receiving deportees originating from other parts of Africa. Others — Eswatini, the Central African Republic, and Liberia — have accepted detainees arriving from Latin America, Europe, and Asia alike. The practical effect is a global sorting mechanism in which a person's fate is determined not by where they come from but by which distant government has agreed to absorb them.
Destinations Under Strain
The choice of African destinations raises pointed questions about conditions on the ground. The Central African Republic, one of the latest drop-off points, is a landlocked nation where decades of armed conflict and the presence of Russian mercenaries have rendered daily life among the most hazardous in the world. The State Department's own travel advisory sits at "Level 4" — its highest tier — urging Americans to avoid the country entirely given pervasive violence and insecurity.
South Sudan, another recipient, has received deportees convicted of violent and serious crimes in the United States, where local officials have placed them in detention. Eswatini has similarly housed detainees with criminal records beyond their immigration violations. By contrast, many of those sent to other destinations carry no criminal history whatsoever; their only infraction was entering the country without authorization or remaining past the period permitted by their paperwork.
Washington's Response
When pressed for comment, the Department of Homeland Security framed the process as a matter of individual choice. A statement issued on Sunday offered the following:
"If an illegal alien chooses to file a claim in court refusing to go to their home country, we are required by law to find a safe and secure nation for them to go to. If an illegal alien chooses to go home, we will give them a free flight home and a $3,000 check. The choice is theirs."
A State Department spokesperson declined to discuss what the agency called "private diplomatic communications with other governments" or the "authenticity or veracity of allegedly leaked documents." The spokesperson added:
"Implementing the Trump Administration's immigration policies is a top priority for the Department of State. We remain unwavering in our commitment to end illegal and mass immigration and bolster America's border security."
One Face Among the Hundreds: Khalil's Story
Among those placed on the most recent flight to the Central African Republic was a 24-year-old Afghan man named Khalil, whose family had worked alongside American forces against the Taliban. His immigration attorney and his brother described a young man who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without documentation in 2024 after a long journey through Latin America, intending to reunite with siblings already in the United States. One brother had been brought to American soil in 2014 specifically because of his service alongside U.S. military forces while serving in the Afghan Army. Another had flown as a pilot against the Taliban and was killed during the war.
Khalil spent his entire period in the United States in ICE custody. In August 2025, while still detained, he was granted a form of legal protection by a U.S. immigration court — a ruling that, by all accounts, did not prevent his eventual placement on a deportation flight to a country where he has no family, no language ties, and no established community.
The broader picture that emerges from the internal documents is one of a deportation apparatus operating at continental scale, guided by bilateral agreements negotiated behind closed doors, and delivering individuals to destinations selected for political convenience rather than personal connection. For the deportees themselves, the distance between where they were held and where they were released is measured not in miles but in the absence of any human anchor — no relative, no employer, no community — waiting at the other end of the flight.
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