The United States has deported more than 40,000 migrants to countries other than their countries of origin under President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, including about 900 removals involving African countries.
Preliminary US government data shared with Reuters showed that third-country deportations, which were relatively rare before Trump returned to office, have increased significantly under his administration.
The policy allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol to send migrants to countries other than where they were born or hold citizenship.
The practice has faced legal challenges, but the US Supreme Court on Tuesday paused a lower court ruling that had restricted third-country deportations.
The decision allows the Trump administration to continue the removals while the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments in December.
The Department of Homeland Security defended the policy, describing third-country deportations as an important immigration enforcement measure.
Reuters reviewed hundreds of pages of legal documents and interviewed deportees and immigration lawyers in documenting 40 cases involving migrants from Africa, Iraq, Jamaica and Russia.
Of those cases, 16 migrants remained in the countries to which they were deported, with some still detained. Another 16 were later returned to their countries of origin against their will.
Nine others were reportedly in hiding in third countries, while the whereabouts of one Ghanaian migrant remained unknown.
Among those documented was Abdou Latifou, a Togolese man who had legal protection preventing his removal to Togo.
Despite the protection, Latifou was deported to Sierra Leone in June. He said he was held for two weeks in a hotel under police surveillance before being sent back to Togo.
He later travelled through Benin to Ivory Coast, where he now lives with a friend and works as a security guard.
Reuters also documented the cases of Ghanaian migrants deported to Cameroon and Sierra Leone, with some later moving to Nigeria, Ghana and Togo.
Another case involved a 44-year-old Mauritanian man who had lived in the US for more than a decade before being deported to Eswatini, a country he said he had never heard of before.
He spent about six weeks in prison before agreeing to return to Mauritania and later travelled to Senegal, where he now lives with relatives.
“My life just got turned upside down,” he said.
The growing number of third-country deportations has intensified scrutiny of the Trump administration’s immigration policy as the legal battle over the practice continues.
