WASHINGTON--The Trump administration says that some serious criminals need to be deported to third countries because even their home countries won't accept them. But a review of recent cases shows that at least five men threatened with such a fate were sent to their native countries within weeks.
President Donald Trump aims to deport millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally and his administration has sought to ramp up removals to third countries, including sending convicted criminals to South Sudan and Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, two sub-Saharan African nations.
Immigrants convicted of crimes typically first serve their U.S. sentences before being deported. This appeared to be the case with the eight men deported to South Sudan and five to Eswatini, although some had been released years earlier.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in June that third-country deportations allow them to deport people “so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won’t take them back.” Critics have countered that it’s not clear the U.S. tried to return the men deported to South Sudan and Eswatini to their home countries and that the deportations were unnecessarily cruel.
Reuters found that at least five men threatened with deportation to Libya in May were sent to their home countries weeks later, according to interviews with two of the men, a family member and attorneys. After a U.S. judge blocked the Trump administration from sending them to Libya, two men from Vietnam, two men from Laos and a man from Mexico were all deported to their home nations. The deportations have not previously been reported.
DHS did not comment on the removals. Reuters could not determine if their home countries initially refused to take them or why the U.S. tried to send them to Libya.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin contested that the home countries of criminals deported to third countries were willing to take them back, but did not provide details on any attempts to return the five men home before they were threatened with deportation to Libya.“If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, you could end up in CECOT, Alligator Alcatraz, Guantanamo Bay, or South Sudan or another third country,” McLaughlin said in a statement, referencing El Salvador’s maximum-security prison and a detention center in the subtropical Florida Everglades.
DHS did not respond to a request for the number of third-country deportations since Trump took office on January 20, although there have been thousands to Mexico and hundreds to other countries.The eight men sent to South Sudan were from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, South Sudan and Vietnam, according to DHS. The manDHS said was from South Sudan had a deportation order to Sudan, according to a court filing. The five men sent to Eswatini were from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen, according to DHS.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the men deported to South Sudan and Eswatini were “the worst of the worst” and included people convicted in the United States of child sex abuse and murder. “American communities are safer with these heinous illegal criminals gone,” Jackson said in a statement.
The Laos government did not respond to requests for comment regarding the men threatened with deportation to Libya and those deported to South Sudan and Eswatini. Vietnam's foreign ministry spokesperson said on July 17 that the government was verifying information regarding the South Sudan deportation but did not provide additional comment to Reuters.The government of Mexico did not comment.
The Trump administration acknowledged in a May 22 court filing that the man from Myanmar had valid travel documents to return to his home country but he was deported to South Sudan anyway. DHS said the man had been convicted of sexual assault involving a victim mentally and physically incapable of resisting.
Eswatini's government said on Tuesday that it was still holding the five migrants sent there in isolated prison units under the deal with the Trump administration.
