Trump intensifies third-country deportations despite global human rights objections

Official data shows tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers have been sent to countries with no connection to them.

US immigration officials have dramatically increased detentions and deportations since January 2025, when Donald Trump became president.

Trump campaigned on the promise of "the largest deportation operation in American history." Officers from the Department of Homeland Security, the agency tasked with cracking down, are now making thousands of arrests across the country every day.

This includes people seeking asylum in the United States, who are supposed to be given an opportunity to explain the dangers they may face in their home country. And U.S. law and international treaties, such as the United Nations Convention Against Torture, prohibit authorities from deporting a person to any country where he or she is being persecuted or tortured.

Many of those detained in the U.S. immigration crackdown say they risk harm or death if returned to their countries of origin, so the Trump administration is looking for alternative places to deport them, including places where someone may not have a cultural or legal connection.

Third-country deportations, as the practice is known, have been criticized by the United States as well as global human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as the United Nations.

Critics of the practice say some countries that accept deportees have a record of human rights abuses or are so dangerous that the U.S. government tells its citizens not to travel there. They also say there is little assurance that the third countries will give deportees a fair hearing in their asylum cases, and in the end they may be returned to their countries of origin to face persecution.

Third-country deportations are nothing new, but rights groups say they were rare before the Trump administration and have never been used by the United States on the current scale. Human rights groups say that those sent to other countries were not deported without their consent. Some US courts have said the practice is illegal, but the US Supreme Court has allowed it to continue, including in a ruling in September.

UN experts have said the practice leads to "a form of human rights abuse" around the world that threatens to overturn norms on how refugees and asylum seekers are treated.

A closer look at third country deportations

Legal groups have attempted to quantify third-country forced deportations, and more than 25,000 people have so far been subject to third-country forced deportations, according to media reports and attorney information, according to the nonprofit organizations Refugees International and Human Rights First.

The Department of Homeland Security's own data includes more than 16,000 deportations from third countries since Trump took office in January 2025 and August 2026, the latest months for which data is available. Data from the Deportation Data Project based at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Los Angeles analyzed by Al Jazeera is likely an undercount.

Deportations to these countries require the approval of officials there, so the Trump administration has sought to reach agreements or informal understandings on how to send deportees to the growing list of countries.

Some countries, such as El Salvador and Swatini, have agreed to hold deportees in prisons.

Others have agreed to hold deportees temporarily, with some signing asylum cooperation agreements with the United States or "safe third country agreements" that allow deportees to pursue their asylum claims in a third country that has agreed to host them.

Many of those deported have no idea where they are being sent and end up in countries where they don't speak the language and have little cultural understanding, according to the rights groups Refugees International and Human Rights First. Some don't even have any documents like passports or ID cards, which makes it difficult to live there.

The list of countries to which people are deported has grown by offering financial aid, or trade or visa privileges, in exchange for countries offering third-country nationals that the Trump administration wants to remove.

For example, Liberia has agreed to accept 1,200 exiles. At one point, the Trump administration announced that it would extend the validity of some visas for Liberians from 12 to 36 months and pledged $124 million for the country's health services.

In Cameroon, which agreed to admit third-country nationals from the United States in December 2025, the Trump administration has pledged $30 million for UN refugee work there and $400 million over the coming years for the country's health services.