Human Rights and Asylum

Reporting reveals a secret U.S. third‑country deportation agreement has sent at least 29 court‑protected asylum‑seekers from countries across Africa and beyond to Equatorial Guinea, where they report indefinite detention without counsel and being told there is no asylum or protection. One deportee — an East African man whose U.S. immigration judge had ruled he was protected — says he was held in a windowless Arizona room, pressured to sign “voluntary return” papers, shackled onto a flight, and advocates and legal experts warn the transfers are being used to circumvent non‑refoulement and other legal protections.