UN Experts Demand End to Trump's Third-Country Deportations

Two dozen United Nations human rights experts on Monday demanded that the Trump administration end its deportation of immigrants, including refugees and asylum-seekers, to countries to which they have no connection—a practice that has set off "a cascade of human rights violations," according to the experts.

Advisers to the UN Human Rights Council sent a communication to the US and the 35 countries President Donald Trump has struck deportation deals with—agreements that the White House has spent at least $40 million on, according to a congressional report released earlier this year.

“These migrants are being transferred to countries or territories with which they have no ties, which can be a traumatizing and isolating experience that compounds harms already suffered, which triggered their fleeing to the US in the first place," said the experts. "Others are sent to places where they risk further violence or discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or human rights advocacy.”

Critics have warned that the arrangements appear to be aimed at circumventing US laws that prohibit Trump from refoulement—sending people back to the countries they fled when they sought asylum in the US. Some of the countries Trump has struck deals with have ultimately sent asylum-seekers back to their home countries, according to The Guardian.

Deported people have also faced violence and the threat of torture in the third countries they've been sent to. As Common Dreams reported last week, Ahmed Soliman, an Egyptian national, and Samson Birhane, who is from Eritrea, were being detained in "an overcrowded police cell, in inhumane conditions" in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea—one of several countries Trump has struck deals with despite its record of human rights abuses.

Amnesty International warned the two men are at risk of being tortured.

The countries Trump is sending people to, said the 24 experts on Monday, "lack the capacity to protect the rights of migrants sent there by wealthy nations seeking to shirk their international obligations."

"The harms caused by this US government scheme are no longer hypothetical," they said. "For migrants in situations of particular vulnerability, the consequences can be deadly.”

About 20,000 people have been taken by bus to Mexico, while more than 5,000 have been flown to countries across Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia. About a third of the deals have been struck with African nations.

"The harms caused by this US government scheme are no longer hypothetical. For migrants in situations of particular vulnerability, the consequences can be deadly.”

The UN experts released their statement days after the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the administration must give migrants “a meaningful opportunity” to appeal the government's plan to send them to a country they have never lived in.

Last Thursday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an emergency application with the US Supreme Court, seeking authorization to continue the third-country deportations as they have been carried out, with "assurances" from governments that people sent by the US will not face persecution or torture. Sauer claimed the removals are “an essential tool to remove certain aliens, including some of the worst criminal aliens," but numerous people sent to third countries have had no criminal records.

Also last week, Sen. Tim Kaine filed several privileged resolutions to compel the Trump administration to release assessments of countries with which it has made deportation deals.

"Through third-country deportations, the Trump administration is stripping people of due process, disappearing them, and sending them to countries all over the world where they risk further harm," said Amnesty International USA on Monday. "The US government must end this cruel practice."