The U.S. government has spent nearly $50 million to send more than 25,000 immigrants to at least 29 nations other than their home countries, according to Refugee International and Human Rights First.
The practice known as third-country deportation has become the Department of Homeland Security’s preferred method for removing immigrants who cannot, for one reason or another, return to their countries of origin.
“The Trump administration has created an opaque web of formal bilateral agreements and behind-the-scenes deals that send asylum seekers, refugees and other immigrants — with almost no warning and little chance to raise fears of persecution or torture — to countries with which they have no ties and where many are subject to grave mistreatment including arbitrary detention or return to danger in the very countries they once fled,” the two human rights organizations said in a joint project, “Third Country Deportation Watch.”
The report lists Mexico as the leading destination in forced deportations, with 20,000 or more. Elsewhere in the Americas, Guatemala has received at least 3,405 deportees, Costa Rica 624, Honduras 558 and Panama 360.
At least 469 immigrants have been deported to African nations, including 100 to Ghana, 92 to the Central African Republic and 66 to Equatorial New Guinea. European and Asian countries have taken a handful, including Moldova with at least 30, Uzbekistan with six and Kosovo with one.
One case that’s gotten heavy attention is that of Yasmani Moreno de Armas, 31, a Cuban immigrant who was detained in Florida in May 2025 and deported to the Central African Republic about three months later, according to court documents related to a lawsuit filed to appeal the government’s action.
According to CBS News, Moreno de Armis learned he was being deported to an African country only upon his arrival there with immigrants from countries such as Ecuador, Russia, Serbia and Honduras.
“We cannot leave, we don’t have documents and we’re suffering and missing our families, in a continent we don’t know,” Moreno de Armas said during a video call from Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic.
The report noted the country is one of the poorest and most dangerous in Africa and the U.S. State Department has labeled it as a high-level threat to visitors.
“Do not travel to Central African Republic for any reason. U.S. citizens are at risk due to unrest, crime, kidnapping, health, terrorism and other,” the Level 4 State Department advisory warns.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia
One of the most high-profile cases is that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a native of El Salvador deported to his home country in March 2025 in violation of a court order barring his removal. He eventually was returned to the United States after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that he be returned.
But his challenges are far from over as the administration tries to prosecute him on criminal charges in hopes of eventually deporting him to a country such as Uganda, Liberia or Costa Rica. He is currently in Maryland fighting efforts to deport him.
According to “Third Country Deportation Watch,” the nations involved in the process participate for a variety of reasons including direct payments, military aid or to curry favor with the Trump administration. In other cases, countries are coerced into involvement with threats of “visa bans, deportation of their own nationals, tariffs and other trade barriers.”
Amnesty International condemned the Trump administration policy as part of the ongoing racialization of migrants in the U.S.: “The U.S. government is terrorizing not only migrants in their communities, forcing them to live in fear — but also anyone who is presumed to be a migrant or refugee. Mass detention and unlawful removals tear families apart, traumatize communities and waste billions in taxpayer money. Their expansion is part of a broader, calculated campaign to dehumanize migrant communities.”
President Donald Trump’s mass anti-immigration campaign, the human rights group added, is one “rooted in racism, built on false criminalizing narratives and maintained through fear.”
The Migration Policy Institute noted in March that third-country deportations are a fraction of the estimated 396,000 immigrant deportations it estimated have happened so far under Trump 2.0.
And that means the program is designed primarily to scare people, the group said: “Threatening to deport individuals to a country where they have no ties or ability to speak the local language helps advance the goal of mass deportations by pressuring unauthorized immigrants to abandon their claim for asylum or other form of relief, accept deportation to their country of origin, or depart voluntarily.”
The administration also has tried to convince judges to automatically order asylum seekers to a third country if they face credible fears of persecution in their home nations, according to MPI: “Ultimately, these agreements are one of many punitive tools the Trump administration is deploying in its pursuit of achieving vast numbers of deportations. It remains to be seen whether the agreements will pass muster with the courts and whether they endure as a feature of U.S. immigration enforcement and U.S. diplomacy going forward.”