The US deported LGBTQ migrants to countries where homosexuality makes them a target

“I’m so scared. I want to go outside, because I’m human. But I cannot go outside here.”

Aylin, age 28, was sitting in a quiet courtyard in the center of Bangui, the bustling capital of the Central African Republic. She recounted the improbable story that brought her here from her native Turkey – via the United States.

She is gay. To protect her from reprisals, CNN is using a pseudonym.

Aylin left her home country two years ago. After a religious group and a close family member threatened her life, she said she decided to seek refuge in the United States.

“I just hoped to be free. To live my life how I want to live, to take a breath. To have friends. A relationship. A good family. My own family. Justice.”

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Soon after arriving in the US, a judge granted Aylin withholding of removal, a form of protection that implies it would be unsafe for her to return to Turkey due to her sexuality. She was denied asylum under a Biden-era border policy that restricted eligibility for many migrants who crossed the southern border outside official pathways. That policy has since been struck down by a federal judge.

But in July, after 18 months in US detention, she says she was handcuffed and shackled, then placed on a flight heading for the Central African Republic (CAR). She had never even heard of the country when she learned, mid-flight, that it was their destination.

Her case represents a dire example of an already distressing policy, immigration advocates say: The US is deporting scores of people who identify as LGBTQ to countries where that puts them at extreme risk.

For years, the US offered protection to people who convinced immigration judges that returning home could mean persecution, torture, or death. Now, some of those same people are finding themselves stranded in countries they have never visited, under a rapidly expanding American policy that legal experts say uses a loophole to deport migrants not to their countries of origin, but to third countries willing to receive them.

The Trump administration has signed at least 35 agreements with countries across Africa, Latin America and elsewhere, according to the nonprofit initiative Third Country Deportation Watch.

Among those caught up in the policy are LGBTQ asylum seekers, like Aylin, who had already won legal protections in US immigration courts.

Aylin spent several weeks cooped up in an apartment block in Bangui, the CAR capital, agonizing over her limited options. She was living a life in limbo: rejected by the US, aware that she could not live freely in the country she now found herself – hostility towards homosexuality is widespread in central Africa – and afraid for what might happen if she returned to the very place she’d fled.

Despite her fears, she ultimately chose to return to Turkey.

“I hope everything has changed for people like me in Turkey,” she told CNN the day before boarding her flight home. “But I’m so scared. Really, I’m so scared.”

Efekan Akyuz/Reuters

In recent weeks, Turkey has launched one of its most sweeping crackdowns on LGBTQ rights groups in years. Though homosexuality is legal in Turkey, authorities have carried out coordinated raids targeting LGBTQ advocacy organizations and activists across multiple cities, leading to mass arrests and detentions .

Turkish officials have defended September’s operation as part of a campaign to protect traditional family values.

Though thousands of migrants have been deported to third countries this year, according to Third Country Deportation Watch, the US government does not provide data on how many of those had sought protection based on characteristics like sexuality.

But Bridget Crawford, from Immigration Equality, an NGO that provides legal services for LGBTQ migrants and asylum seekers in the US, believes the numbers have shot up.

“It’s terrible for any refugee to be put in that situation, being deported to a country where they have no connections, where they have no support system, where in so many cases, people are being arbitrarily detained where they don’t have a true opportunity for permanent status,” Crawford said.

“But if you’re queer or trans and you’re being sent to a country that persecutes queer and trans people, it is just unconscionable.”

Finn Gomez/Getty Images

Trump urges Supreme Court to restart deportations to countries with poor human rights records

Human rights groups are especially concerned that nearly half of the countries accepting deportees from the US are African nations, many of which criminalize homosexuality. Reports of a worsening climate for LGBTQ people are rising sharply across parts of the continent, and politicians have increasingly campaigned on anti-LGBTQ platforms.

She fled Iran. America sent her to Africa

Over several weeks, CNN spoke with several deportees who identify as LGBTQ scattered across Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and CAR. They all expressed disbelief and terror at being sent to countries where they felt they were now at heightened risk.

Adwoa, a 21-year-old bisexual Ghanaian woman, tearfully describes fleeing years of hostility and violence linked to her sexuality when she sought refuge in the US. CNN is also using a pseudonym for her, because of her precarious position.

She says her sexuality meant that her neighbors ostracized her family and accused them of witchcraft. But after obtaining a guarantee from a US court that she would not be deported back to Ghana, she was instead sent to Cameroon, where same-sex relations are also illegal, and punishable by up to five years in prison.

In fact, Crawford said, her organization has represented several asylum cases for LGBTQ Cameroonian nationals claiming persecution due to their sexuality.

“It’s like you’re a criminal,” Adwoa said of her life in Cameroon, where she’s been staying at a government-run detention facility for the last few months. “It’s a terrifying feeling.” She believes she could be killed if she returned to Ghana.

Though homosexuality is not illegal in CAR, where Aylin was sent, societal norms mean that maintaining a homosexual relationship is “extraordinarily dangerous,” according to a 2023 report by the US State Department.

On the streets of Bangui, CNN encountered open hostility toward LGBTQ people. “We don’t like them. They should be killed,” one person said. Another called for security forces to arrest and punish them. “We don’t want them to live because they are men like us and, since they allow themselves to be penetrated from behind, we don’t like that.”

Human rights groups have noted that women in same-sex relationships across Africa can also often face so-called “corrective” sexual violence, assaults, harassment and discrimination.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has defended its deportation policy, arguing that migrants are receiving due process and that third-country agreements are lawful tools to carry out removal orders.

“These third-country agreements, which ensure due process under the U.S. Constitution, are essential to the safety of our homeland and the American people,” DHS said in a statement to CNN. “We are applying the law as written. If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period.”

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“It’s an abdication of both our legal and our moral obligations. Under domestic law, and under international law,” said Crawford.

A federal appeals court this month upheld a February ruling that aspects of the administration’s third-country deportation policy were unlawful, raising questions about whether migrants are being given adequate opportunities to challenge transfers to unfamiliar countries. The case is likely headed to the Supreme Court , which has previously allowed deportations to continue by lifting temporary injunctions.

For those living in this reality, the political debate feels far away.

Aylin is now back in Turkey, where she has told her family that she’s changed her sexual orientation. But she is very far from the freedoms she dreamed of when she left for the US.

“I will find a job, I will get money, I will leave secretly for Europe or somewhere else,” she said. “I cannot feel like myself here.”

“我好害怕。我想出去，因为我也是人。但我在这里不能出去。”

28岁的艾琳坐在中非共和国繁华首都班吉市中心一个安静的庭院里。她讲述了自己从故乡土耳其经美国来到这里，这段不可思议的经历。

她是同性恋。为了保护她免受报复，CNN使用了化名。

艾琳两年前离开了她的祖国。她说，在受到一个宗教团体和一位近亲的生命威胁后，她决定前往美国寻求庇护。

“我只希望获得自由。按照我想要的方式生活，自由呼吸。拥有朋友。一段感情。一个美好的家庭。我自己的家庭。正义。”

正在热播：揭秘特朗普的秘密遣返协议。升级观看完整报道。

艾琳抵达美国后不久，一位法官批准了她的暂缓遣返申请。这种保护措施意味着，由于她的性取向，返回土耳其对她来说并不安全。根据拜登时代的边境政策，许多未经官方途径越过南部边境的移民不符合庇护资格，艾琳的庇护申请被拒。该政策后来被一位联邦法官推翻。

但她说，7月份，在被美国拘留18个月后，她被戴上手铐和脚镣，然后被送上一架飞往中非共和国的航班。在飞行途中，她才得知目的地是中非共和国，此前她甚至从未听说过这个国家。

移民权益倡导者表示，她的案例代表了一个令人痛心的政策的极端例子：美国正在将大量LGBTQ人士驱逐到那些使他们面临极端风险的国家。

多年来，美国一直为那些能够说服移民法官，返回原籍国可能面临迫害、酷刑甚至死亡的人提供保护。如今，这些人中的一些人却发现自己滞留在从未到访过的国家。法律专家指出，一项迅速扩张的美国政策利用法律漏洞，将移民遣返回愿意接收他们的第三国，而不是遣返回原籍国。

据非营利组织“第三国驱逐观察”称，特朗普政府已与非洲、拉丁美洲和其他地区的至少 35 个国家签署了协议。

这项政策的受害者包括像艾琳这样的 LGBTQ 寻求庇护者，她此前已在美国移民法庭获得了法律保护。

艾琳在中央非洲国家首都班吉的一栋公寓楼里被困了好几个星期，为自己有限的选择而苦恼不已。她的生活进退维谷：被美国拒之门外，意识到自己无法在这个国家自由生活——中非地区普遍存在对同性恋的敌意——而且害怕如果回到她逃离的地方会发生什么。

尽管心怀恐惧，她最终还是选择返回土耳其。

“我希望像我这样的人在土耳其的境况已经有所改变，”她在登机回家的前一天告诉CNN。“但我真的很害怕。真的，我很害怕。”

埃费坎·阿克尤兹/路透社

近几周来，土耳其对LGBTQ权益组织展开了近年来最大规模的镇压行动之一。尽管同性恋在土耳其是合法的，但当局在多个城市对LGBTQ权益倡导组织和活动人士进行了协同突袭，导致大规模逮捕和拘留。

土耳其官员为9月份的军事行动辩护，称其是保护传统家庭价值观的行动的一部分。

据第三国遣返观察组织称，虽然今年已有数千名移民被遣返至第三国，但美国政府并未提供其中有多少人是基于性取向等特征寻求保护的数据。

但为美国 LGBTQ 移民和寻求庇护者提供法律服务的非政府组织“移民平等”的布里奇特·克劳福德认为，这一数字已经大幅上升。

克劳福德说：“对于任何难民来说，被遣返回一个他们没有任何关系、没有任何支持系统的国家，都是非常糟糕的。在很多情况下，人们在那里被任意拘留，根本没有机会获得永久居留权。”

“但如果你是同性恋或跨性别者，却被送往一个迫害同性恋和跨性别者的国家，这简直是丧尽天良。”

Finn Gomez/Getty Images

特朗普敦促最高法院重启对人权记录不良国家的驱逐出境行动

人权组织尤其担忧，接收美国遣返人员的国家中近一半是非洲国家，而这些国家中许多将同性恋定为犯罪。非洲部分地区LGBTQ人群处境日益恶化的报道急剧增加，政客们也越来越多地以反LGBTQ的纲领开展竞选活动。

她逃离了伊朗。美国把她送到了非洲。

在几周的时间里，CNN采访了多位被遣返的LGBTQ人士，他们分散在喀麦隆、赤道几内亚和中非共和国各地。他们都对被遣返回国感到难以置信和恐惧，因为他们觉得这些国家会让他们面临更高的风险。

21岁的加纳双性恋女性阿德沃亚（Adwoa）泪流满面地讲述了她如何逃离多年来因性取向而遭受的敌意和暴力，最终在美国寻求庇护。由于她的处境岌岌可危，CNN使用了化名。

她说，由于她的性取向，邻居们排斥她的家人，并指控他们是巫师。但在获得美国法院保证不会被遣返回加纳后，她被送往喀麦隆，在那里，同性关系同样违法，最高可判处五年监禁。

克劳福德表示，事实上，她的组织已经代理了多起因性取向而遭受迫害的喀麦隆 LGBTQ 国民的庇护案件。

“感觉自己就像个罪犯，”阿德沃亚谈到她在喀麦隆的生活时说道。过去几个月，她一直被关押在政府运营的拘留中心。“这种感觉太可怕了。”她认为如果返回加纳，她可能会被杀害。

尽管同性恋在艾琳被送往的中非共和国并不违法，但根据美国国务院 2023 年的一份报告，当地的社会规范意味着维持同性恋关系“极其危险”。

在班吉街头，CNN记者遭遇了针对LGBTQ人群的公开敌意。“我们不喜欢他们。他们应该被杀掉。”有人说道。另一人呼吁安全部队逮捕并惩罚他们。“我们不想让他们活着，因为他们和我们一样是男人，而且既然他们允许别人从后面进入他们，我们就不喜欢这样。”

人权组织指出，非洲各地处于同性关系中的女性也经常面临所谓的“矫正性”性暴力、袭击、骚扰和歧视。

美国国土安全部 (DHS) 为其驱逐政策辩护，认为移民得到了正当程序，并且第三国协议是执行驱逐令的合法工具。

美国国土安全部在发给CNN的一份声明中表示：“这些与第三国达成的协议确保了美国宪法规定的正当程序，对我们国土安全和美国人民至关重要。我们将依法行事。如果法官认定非法移民无权留在美国，我们将遣返他们。就这么简单。”

Heather Diehl/Getty Images

克劳福德说：“这既是对我们法律义务的放弃，也是对我们道德义务的放弃。无论根据国内法还是国际法，都是如此。”

本月，联邦上诉法院维持了2月份的一项裁决，该裁决认定政府的第三国遣返政策部分内容违法。这一裁决引发了人们对移民是否拥有充分机会对被遣送至陌生国家提出质疑的担忧。此案很可能最终上诉至最高法院，而最高法院此前曾通过撤销临时禁令允许继续执行遣返程序。

对于生活在这种现实中的人来说，政治辩论感觉离自己很遥远。

艾琳现在已经回到土耳其，她告诉家人自己改变了性取向。但她离当初去美国时梦想的自由还很遥远。

“我会找到工作，我会挣钱，我会偷偷溜去欧洲或其他地方，”她说。“我在这里感觉不像自己。”