Is dumping a Cuban person in Africa ‘deportation’?

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About two weeks ago, US authorities took Cubans, Venezuelans and other Latin Americans from detention centers and placed them on a flight to Liberia. When they landed, having spent the entire flight in shackles, some of the men refused to get off the plane, according to the Miami Herald. They had no ties to the African continent, let alone Liberia.

Reuters reported that authorities told the captives who refused to leave the plane that they would be taken back to the US, but proceeded to fly them to Equatorial Guinea, one of the world’s longest-standing dictatorships with a bleak human rights record. There, the Herald reported, they were taken to a hotel and confined, with no idea about when or how they might leave.

This incident, one of many such transfers that have occurred under the Trump administration, was described in news reports as a “deportation.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: CNN’s “Word of the Week” brings you the meaning behind the words in the news.

illustration by Alberto Mier/CNN

As President Donald Trump and his administration seek to force immigrants out of the country en masse, the government has found that some countries are refusing to take back their citizens. So the administration has devised a workaround to try to get closer to Trump’s goal of deporting a million people a year: putting undocumented immigrants or asylum seekers on airplanes and delivering them to faraway countries to which they have no ties.

For more than a century, the vast majority of people removed from the US have been sent back to their country of origin or to the country from which they entered, said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. This is generally how the public understands the concept of deportation.

But the Trump administration is going several steps further, sending people to unfamiliar countries where they face further confinement, sometimes indefinitely. In these instances, they are not free to start a new life; rather, they continue to be punished for ever having come to the US at all.

The realities are so harrowing that some immigration advocates argue the word “deportation” fails to capture the gravity of the situation.

“‘Deportation’ is an understatement because deportation doesn’t fully express the randomness and the cruelty and the danger that comes with third-country deportations,” said Amy Fischer, director of refugee and migrant rights at Amnesty International USA.

Anna O. Law, an immigration historian and professor at Brooklyn College, said that the lack of adequate vocabulary is severely hampering public understanding of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. “The common understanding of what deportation means doesn’t always comport with what is actually happening to people,” she said. “And it’s underplaying the severity of the situation and the rights violations.”

The word “deportation,” derived from the Latin “dēportāre,” meaning to carry off, convey away or transport, was recorded in English as far back as 1595. In the US, the act of deporting noncitizens seems to predate the use of the word by about a century. The Alien Acts of 1798, which Trump has invoked in his effort to oust migrants, granted the president powers to expel foreigners, though they used words such as “depart” and “remove.”

By 1893, the word “deportation” had entered legal parlance. It appeared several times in the Supreme Court’s decision on Fong Yue Ting v. the United States, which challenged a law that extended the Chinese Exclusion Act . It also appeared in the Immigration Act of 1907, which restricted the kinds of immigrants that were allowed into the US.

Carielle Doe/Reuters

For a time, the US used both “exclusion” and “deportation” to describe the act of removing someone from the country, said Muzaffar Chishti, a lawyer and senior fellow for the Migration Policy Institute. “Exclusion” referred to people who arrived at a port of entry and were deemed inadmissible, and “deportation” referred to people who were already in the country and were ordered removed (“exclude” and “deport” both appear in the landmark Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965). In 1996, according to Chishti, “deportation” and “exclusion” were combined into “removal,” which remains the official term.

“Deportation” continues to be used colloquially, though.

Though sending people to countries other than where they are from, a practice known as “third-country removal” or “third-country deportations,” is not new, Reichlin-Melnick said it was rarely used until recent years — he noted the shift began with Joe Biden’s administration , which returned non-Mexican migrants who entered at the southern US border back to Mexico at a larger scale than before. The Trump administration has ramped up the practice even further, entering into agreements with countries in Africa, Central Asia and Latin America to accept people that it wants out of the US, often in exchange for funding or other favors .

“For the United States now to begin sending thousands of people to countries that are not their own, even though they come with the term ‘removal’ written into the law, it does suggest that it’s something different,” Reichlin-Melnick added.

A removal order typically specifies what country the person is being deported to, Reichlin-Melnick explained. If a person cannot be returned to their country of origin or the country from which they entered, he said the law indicates that the person being removed can designate which country they want to be sent to — this could be a country where they hold dual citizenship, a country where they were born or a country that had sovereignty over the home country when they were born. The law stipulates that if it is “impractical, inadvisable, or impossible” to send the person to one of those countries, then the US government can send the person to another country that will accept them.

While this means the government can legally send a person to a third country of its choosing, Reichlin-Melnick said this provision of the law is intended as an exception, to be used when all other countries a person could be sent to have been ruled out. But the Trump administration, Reichlin-Melnick said, is weaponizing this exception and treating it as the rule.

And even when the US government designates the country a person is sent to, it must still comply with certain rules. Under international and domestic law, Chishti said, the US cannot send a person to a country where they will face persecution or torture, a principle known as non-refoulement. It is also illegal to send an asylum seeker or refugee to a third country that will subsequently deport them to their home country, where they risk persecution or torture, a process known as chain refoulement.

For years, Fischer said that human rights experts understood refoulement to mean returning refugees and asylum seekers to the countries they had come from. And while reporting from The Washington Post and The New York Times has indicated that some officials who have agreed to accept migrants from the US intend to send them back to their home countries, she said that migrants are at risk of human rights violations even in countries other than the ones they originally fled.

The Department of Homeland Security referred questions about third-country agreements to the State Department, which did not respond to a request for comment. But the Trump administration has previously said that its third-country agreements guarantee due process, and that the third countries are providing “ diplomatic assurances ” that the migrants won’t be persecuted or tortured.

As advocates have noted, however, many migrants aren’t given a proper hearing and receive as little as a day’s notice before they are sent to a distant country, where they are detained upon arrival. Without papers or cellphones, they have no access to basic means of living. The poor human rights records of the countries that agreed to accept them are further cause for alarm .

“That is a level of officially sanctioned cruelty that really no administration in the modern era has engaged in,” Reichlin-Melnick said, “and really exemplifies the need for Congress to step in and do something.”

Is there a better word than “deportation” to describe the Trump administration’s campaign of sending people to countries where they have never been, where they don’t know anyone or speak the language and where they might face human rights violations?

Law said she didn’t have language for such circumstances. Fischer said “intentional cruelty” and “chaos” were what came to mind. Elsewhere, some scholars and immigration experts have compared certain third-country removals to “extraordinary rendition,” a term for when authorities bypass the process of extradition and transfer criminal suspects to jurisdictions with lower human rights standards.

In an interview with Tampa Bay Times reporter Juan Carlos Chavez, one Cuban immigrant who was living in Florida and spent months in detention before he was sent to Africa had another word for what was done to him: He called it a “kidnapping.”

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马修·雅各布斯/法新社/盖蒂图片社

大约两周前，美国当局将古巴人、委内瑞拉人和其他一些拉丁美洲人从拘留中心带走，并安排他们乘坐飞机前往利比里亚。据《迈阿密先驱报》报道，这些人全程戴着镣铐，飞机降落后，部分男子拒绝下飞机。他们与非洲大陆没有任何联系，更遑论利比里亚。

路透社报道称，当局告诉拒绝下飞机的被俘人员，他们将被送回美国，但随后却将他们飞往赤道几内亚——世界上存在时间最长的独裁政权之一，人权记录糟糕透顶。据《先驱报》报道，他们在那里被带到一家酒店并被软禁，完全不知道何时或如何才能离开。

这是特朗普政府时期发生的众多此类转移事件之一，新闻报道将其描述为“驱逐出境”。

编者按：CNN的“每周一词”栏目为您解读新闻中出现的词语背后的含义。

插图：Alberto Mier/CNN

随着唐纳德·特朗普总统及其政府试图大规模驱逐移民，美国政府发现一些国家拒绝接收其公民。因此，为了更接近特朗普每年遣返一百万人的目标，美国政府设计了一种变通方案：将无证移民或寻求庇护者送上飞机，送往他们毫无关联的遥远国家。

美国移民委员会高级研究员亚伦·雷希林-梅尔尼克表示，一个多世纪以来，绝大多数被驱逐出境的人都被遣返回原籍国或入境国。这通常是公众对驱逐出境概念的理解。

但特朗普政府的做法更进一步，将人们送往陌生的国家，让他们面临进一步的监禁，有时甚至是无限期的监禁。在这种情况下，他们无法开始新的生活；相反，他们仅仅因为曾经来到美国就继续受到惩罚。

现实情况如此惨烈，以至于一些移民权益倡导者认为“驱逐出境”一词不足以体现局势的严重性。

“‘驱逐出境’这个词不足以形容驱逐出境的严重性，因为它无法充分表达第三国驱逐出境的随机性、残酷性和危险性，”国际特赦组织美国分部难民和移民权利主任艾米·费舍尔说。

布鲁克林学院的移民历史学家兼教授安娜·O·劳表示，缺乏足够的词汇严重阻碍了公众对特朗普政府移民政策的理解。“人们对‘驱逐出境’含义的普遍理解，并不总是与实际发生在人们身上的情况相符，”她说，“这淡化了局势的严重性和人权侵犯的程度。”

“驱逐出境”（deportation）一词源于拉丁语“dēportāre”，意为带走、运送或移走，最早于1595年出现在英语文献中。在美国，驱逐非公民的行为似乎比“驱逐出境”一词的使用早了大约一个世纪。特朗普援引的1798年《外国人法案》赋予总统驱逐外国人的权力，尽管该法案中使用的措辞是“离开”（depart）和“移除”（remove）。

到1893年，“驱逐出境”一词已进入法律术语。在最高法院对“方岳廷诉美国案”的判决中，该词多次出现。该案挑战了一项扩大《排华法案》适用范围的法律。此外，1907年的《移民法》也使用了该词，该法限制了获准进入美国的移民类型。

卡里尔·多伊/路透社

移民政策研究所高级研究员、律师穆扎法尔·奇什蒂表示，美国曾一度同时使用“驱逐出境”（exclusion）和“遣返”（deportation）来描述将某人从该国驱逐出境的行为。“驱逐出境”指的是抵达入境口岸后被认定为不符合入境资格的人，而“遣返”指的是已经在美国境内并被下令遣返的人（“驱逐出境”和“遣返”这两个词都出现在具有里程碑意义的1965年《移民和国籍法》中）。奇什蒂指出，1996年，“遣返”和“驱逐出境”合并为“遣返”（removal），该词至今仍是官方用语。

不过，“驱逐出境”一词仍然在口语中使用。

赖希林-梅尔尼克表示，将人遣返回原籍国以外的国家并非新鲜事，这种做法被称为“第三国遣返”或“第三国驱逐”，但近年来才开始频繁使用。他指出，这种转变始于拜登政府时期，该政府以前所未有的规模将从美国南部边境入境的非墨西哥移民遣返回墨西哥。特朗普政府则进一步加大了这一力度，与非洲、中亚和拉丁美洲国家达成协议，接收其希望遣返的人员，通常以资金或其他好处作为交换。

“现在美国开始将成千上万的人送往其他国家，即使法律中写着‘驱逐’一词，这也表明情况有所不同，”赖希林-梅尔尼克补充道。

赖希林-梅尔尼克解释说，遣返令通常会明确指定被遣返者将被遣送至哪个国家。他表示，如果无法将某人遣返回其原籍国或入境国，法律规定被遣返者可以指定希望被送往的国家——这可以是其拥有双重国籍的国家、其出生国，或在其出生时对其原籍国拥有主权的国家。法律规定，如果将某人遣送至上述国家“不切实际、不明智或不可能”，则美国政府可以将其遣送至愿意接收的另一个国家。

虽然这意味着政府可以合法地将某人遣送至其选择的第三国，但赖希林-梅尔尼克表示，该法律条款旨在作为一项例外，仅在所有其他可能的遣送国家均已排除的情况下使用。然而，赖希林-梅尔尼克指出，特朗普政府正在滥用这一例外，并将其视为惯例。

即使美国政府指定了遣返对象所在国，也必须遵守某些规定。奇什蒂表示，根据国际法和国内法，美国不能将任何人遣送至其将面临迫害或酷刑的国家，这一原则被称为“不驱回原则”。此外，将寻求庇护者或难民遣送至第三国，而该国随后又将其遣返回原籍国，使其面临迫害或酷刑的风险，也是违法的，这一过程被称为“链式驱回原则”。

菲舍尔表示，多年来，人权专家一直认为“遣返”是指将难民和寻求庇护者遣返回他们原籍国。尽管《华盛顿邮报》和《纽约时报》的报道显示，一些同意接收美国移民的官员打算将他们遣返回国，但她指出，即使在他们最初逃离的国家之外，移民仍然面临人权侵犯的风险。

美国国土安全部将有关第三国协议的问题转给了国务院，但国务院未对此置评。不过，特朗普政府此前曾表示，其与第三国达成的协议能够保障正当程序，并且第三国也提供了“外交保证”，确保移民不会受到迫害或酷刑。

然而，正如维权人士所指出的，许多移民没有得到应有的听证机会，甚至在被送往遥远国家前只有短短一天的通知，抵达后便遭到拘留。由于没有证件或手机，他们无法获得基本的生活必需品。而那些同意接收他们的国家糟糕的人权记录，更令人担忧。

“这是官方认可的残酷行径，现代历史上没有任何一届政府真正参与过，”赖希林-梅尔尼克说，“这真正体现了国会介入并采取行动的必要性。”

用“驱逐出境”来形容特朗普政府将人们送往他们从未去过、不认识任何人、不会说当地语言、并且可能面临人权侵犯的国家的行动，还有比“驱逐出境”更贴切的词吗？

劳表示她找不到合适的词语来形容这种情况。菲舍尔则说，她能想到的词是“蓄意残忍”和“混乱”。此外，一些学者和移民专家将某些从第三国遣返的做法比作“非常规引渡”，指的是当局绕过引渡程序，将犯罪嫌疑人移交给人权标准较低的司法管辖区。

在接受《坦帕湾时报》记者胡安·卡洛斯·查韦斯的采访时，一位居住在佛罗里达州的古巴移民在被送往非洲之前被拘留了数月，他用另一个词来形容自己所遭受的待遇：他称之为“绑架”。

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