Trump administration expands 'third country' deportations, sending 100+ to African nations

Over ten days in late August, the Trump administration executed three immigration enforcement flights that deposited more than 100 people across eight African nations. None of them were citizens of the countries where they landed. The deportees came from Afghanistan, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Nepal, Turkey, Venezuela, and various African nations themselves. They were sent to Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Liberia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone. Internal U.S. government documents obtained by CBS News reveal the scope of what the administration calls its "third country" deportation strategy—a mechanism that allows the government to expel people to nations where they have no family, no language, no legal status, and often no safety.

The strategy is not new, but it is accelerating. More than 30 countries globally have agreed to accept such deportations, including Costa Rica, Panama, and Paraguay. But the Trump administration has brokered deals with a growing roster of African nations, some of them fractured by armed conflict, political instability, and documented human rights violations. Ghana and Sierra Leone have agreed to accept only African deportees. But countries like Eswatini, the Central African Republic, and Liberia have received people from Latin America, Europe, and Asia—individuals with no connection to those places beyond the fact that the U.S. government needed somewhere to send them.

Some of those deported carry criminal convictions alongside their immigration violations. But many do not. Their only offense is entering the country without authorization or lacking proper documentation to remain. The government documents show that among the August deportees were people who had won legal protections in U.S. immigration court—a status that should have shielded them from removal to their home countries but did not prevent the Trump administration from sending them elsewhere.

One case illustrates the human weight of this policy. Khalil, a 24-year-old Afghan man, crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in 2024 after traveling through Latin America. He came to join his brothers, one of whom had been brought to the United States in 2014 because of his service alongside American military forces in the Afghan Army. Another brother, a pilot, had fought the Taliban and was killed during the war. While detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Khalil was granted "withholding of removal" by a U.S. immigration judge in August 2025—a legal protection that acknowledged he faced persecution if returned to Afghanistan. He did not receive asylum, a more permanent status, because a Biden-era policy disqualified asylum-seekers who had not sought protection in other countries first.

The withholding of removal barred ICE from sending Khalil back to Afghanistan. It did not, however, prevent his deportation to a third country. In late August, he was put on a flight to the Central African Republic, a landlocked nation ravaged by armed conflict and Russian mercenary activity. The U.S. State Department maintains a "Level 4" travel advisory for the country, warning Americans to avoid it entirely due to widespread violence and insecurity.

Zachary Schmidt, an active-duty Marine colonel who supervised Khalil's brother during his deployment to Afghanistan, expressed grave concern about the deportation. "It is my belief that if Khalil gets sent back to Afghanistan, that he will be killed," Schmidt told CBS News. He noted that the United States had made an implicit bargain with Afghans who aided the American war effort: help us, and we will protect you and your family. "We have to keep that promise," he said.

Khalil's immigration lawyer, Alma David, framed the case as emblematic of a broader assault on the global refugee protection system. The Trump administration's approach—using third-country deportations to circumvent legal protections won in American courts—represents, in her view, an attempt to render those protections meaningless.

When asked about the deportations, the Department of Homeland Security said that when people refuse to return to their home countries, the government is legally required to find "a safe and secure nation" for them. "If an illegal alien chooses to go home, we will give them a free flight home and a $3,000 check," the department stated. "The choice is theirs." The State Department declined to comment on what it called "private diplomatic communications" or the authenticity of the leaked documents, but reaffirmed its commitment to ending what it characterized as illegal and mass immigration.

The documents obtained by CBS News offer a rare window into the mechanics of a policy largely conducted in secrecy. The international agreements that enable these deportations have been shrouded from public view. What emerges from the August flights is a picture of a system in which people with no ties to their destinations, including those granted legal protection in American courts, are being sent to countries selected not for their safety or their connection to the deportees, but for their willingness to accept them.