Trump ramps up third-country US deportations despite global rights outcry

Official data shows tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers have been sent to countries they have no ties to.

Deportees board a plane during a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation via military airlift at Fort Bliss, Texas, the United States, February 7, 2025 [Sgt Walker Pino/US Department of Defense/AFP]

United States immigration authorities have dramatically stepped up detentions and deportations since January 2025, when Donald Trump became president.

Trump campaigned on a pledge to implement the “largest deportation operation in American history”. Officers with the Department of Homeland Security, the agency tasked with the crackdown, now make thousands of arrests a day across the country.

That includes people who are seeking asylum in the US, who are supposed to be given a chance to explain dangers they might face in their home country. And US law and international treaties, like the United Nations Convention Against Torture, prohibit authorities from deporting someone to any country in which they will be persecuted or tortured.

Many of those being detained in the US immigration crackdown say they are at risk of being hurt or killed if they return to their native countries, so the Trump administration has looked for alternative places to deport them, including places someone might have no cultural or legal ties to.

Third-country deportations, as the practice is known, have been criticised by the US as well as global rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as the UN.

Critics of the practice say some of the countries taking in the deportees have a record of human rights abuses themselves, or are so dangerous that the US government tells its own citizens not to travel there. They also say there is little to ensure these third countries will give deportees a fair hearing on their cases for asylum, and in the end might send them back to their native countries to face persecution there.

Third-country deportations are not new, but rights groups say they were extremely rare before the Trump administration, and have never been used by the US at the scale they are now. Those being sent to other countries, rights groups say, would not have been 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.

Experts at the UN have said the practice was leading to a “cascade of human rights violations” across the globe, threatening to undo norms around how refugees and asylum seekers are treated.

A closer look at the third-country deportations

Rights groups have tried to tally forcible third-country deportations, and according to the nonprofits Refugees International and Human Rights First, more than 25,000 people have been subject to forcible third-country deportations so far, based on media reports and information from attorneys.

The Department of Homeland Security’s own data includes more than 16,000 cases of third-country deportations since Trump came into office in January 2025 and August 2026, the latest month for which data is available. The data, provided to the Deportation Data Project based at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Los Angeles and analysed by Al Jazeera, is likely an undercount.

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

Some countries have agreed to keep deportees in prisons, like El Salvador and Eswatini .

Others have agreed to hold deportees temporarily, with some signing Asylum Cooperative Agreements with the US, or “Safe Third Country Agreements”, which allow deportees to pursue asylum claims in a third country that has agreed to host them.

According to rights groups Refugees International and Human Rights First, many of those deported have no idea where they are being sent, and end up finding themselves in countries where they do not speak the language and have little cultural understanding. Some don’t even have any documents like passports or identification cards, making it difficult to live there.

The list of countries people are being deported to has grown as the US offers financial aid, or business or visa concessions, in exchange for countries taking in third-country nationals the Trump administration wants to remove.

Liberia has agreed to take up to 1,200 deportees, for instance. The Trump administration at one point said it would extend the validity of certain visas for Liberians from 12 to 36 months, and has committed $124m for the country’s health services.

In Cameroon, which agreed to take third-country nationals from the US in December 2025, the Trump administration has pledged to give $30m for the UN’s refugee work there, and $400m over the coming years for the country’s health services.

官方数据显示，数万名移民和寻求庇护者被送往与他们没有任何联系的国家。

2025年2月7日，在美国德克萨斯州布利斯堡，被驱逐者登上飞机，这是美国移民和海关执法局（ICE）通过军事空运进行的一次驱逐行动。[沃克·皮诺中士/美国国防部/法新社]

自 2025 年 1 月唐纳德·特朗普就任总统以来，美国移民当局大幅增加了拘留和驱逐出境的力度。

特朗普竞选时承诺要实施“美国历史上规模最大的驱逐行动”。负责此次打击行动的国土安全部官员现在每天在全国各地逮捕数千人。

这包括那些在美国寻求庇护的人，他们理应有机会解释他们在原籍国可能面临的危险。美国法律和国际条约，例如《联合国禁止酷刑公约》，都禁止当局将任何人遣返回其将遭受迫害或酷刑的国家。

许多在美国移民打击行动中被拘留的人表示，如果他们返回祖国，将面临受伤或死亡的风险，因此特朗普政府一直在寻找其他遣返地点，包括一些人可能与这些地方没有任何文化或法律联系的地方。

这种被称为“第三国遣返”的做法受到了美国以及国际特赦组织、人权观察等全球人权组织和联合国的批评。

批评人士指出，一些接收被遣返者的国家本身就存在侵犯人权的记录，或者极其危险，以至于美国政府建议本国公民不要前往这些国家。他们还表示，几乎没有任何措施可以确保这些第三国会公正地审理被遣返者的庇护申请，最终这些国家可能会将他们遣返回原籍国，让他们在那里面临迫害。

将公民遣返至第三国并非新鲜事，但人权组织表示，在特朗普政府之前，这种做法极其罕见，美国也从未像现在这样大规模地使用过这种做法。人权组织称，被遣返至其他国家的公民，如果没有他们的同意，是不会被遣返的。一些美国法院曾裁定这种做法非法，但美国最高法院却允许其继续存在，包括9月份的一项裁决。

联合国专家表示，这种做法正在导致全球范围内“一系列侵犯人权的行为”，有可能破坏有关如何对待难民和寻求庇护者的规范。

深入探究第三国遣返问题

人权组织试图统计强制遣返第三国的案例，根据媒体报道和律师提供的信息，非营利组织“国际难民组织”和“人权第一”表示，迄今为止已有超过 25,000 人遭受强制遣返第三国的案例。

美国国土安全部自身的数据显示，自特朗普2025年1月上任以来，截至2026年8月（这是目前可获得的最新数据），已有超过16000起从第三国遣返人员的案例。这些数据由加州大学伯克利分校和加州大学洛杉矶分校的“遣返数据项目”提供，并由半岛电视台进行分析，但实际数字可能远高于此。

遣返至这些国家需要得到当地当局的批准，因此特朗普政府一直在寻求达成协议或非正式谅解，以决定如何将遣返者送往越来越多的国家。

一些国家已同意将驱逐出境者关押在监狱中，例如萨尔瓦多和斯威士兰。

其他国家同意暂时拘留被驱逐者，其中一些国家与美国签署了庇护合作协议或“安全第三国协议”，允许被驱逐者在同意接收他们的第三国寻求庇护。

据人权组织“国际难民组织”（Refugees International）和“人权第一”（Human Rights First）称，许多被遣返的人不知道自己将被送往何处，最终发现自己身处语言不通、文化差异极大的国家。有些人甚至没有任何证件，例如护照或身份证，这使得他们在那里的生活举步维艰。

随着美国向接收特朗普政府想要驱逐的第三国国民的国家提供财政援助、商业或签证优惠，被驱逐出境的国家名单不断增加。

例如，利比里亚已同意接收至多1200名被驱逐者。特朗普政府一度表示，将把部分利比里亚公民的签证有效期从12个月延长至36个月，并承诺向该国医疗卫生服务提供1.24亿美元援助。

喀麦隆同意从 2025 年 12 月起接收来自美国的第三国国民。特朗普政府承诺向联合国在喀麦隆的难民工作提供 3000 万美元，并在未来几年向该国的医疗服务提供 4 亿美元。