July 16, 2025

ICE deported five men to Eswatini on first third-country removal flight

On July 16, 2025, five men deported by the United States arrived in Eswatini, the first flight under the Trump administration's newly launched third-country removal arrangement. DHS said the men, from Vietnam, Laos, Jamaica, Cuba, and Yemen, could not be returned to their home countries and described them as convicted of serious crimes; Eswatini said it would hold them in isolated units pending eventual repatriation. The flight inaugurated a policy that sent at least three more groups to the same facility over the following year.

Part of: Trump Administration Third-Country Deportation Program

Jurisdiction: Federal
Location: United States; destination Eswatini

Abuses documented

Actors

Five men deported by the United States arrived in Eswatini on Wednesday, July 16, 2025, the first flight under the Trump administration's newly launched third-country removal arrangement, under which people are deported to nations that are not their own and to which they have no prior ties. The five were from Vietnam, Laos, Jamaica, Cuba, and Yemen; DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said their home countries had refused to accept them back and described them, without independent verification in reporting, as convicted of crimes including murder, child rape, and assault. Eswatini's government said the men would be held in isolated units within correctional facilities pending eventual repatriation to their home countries.

Human rights advocates and reporting at the time noted that the administration's swift third-country removal process left people unable to challenge removal in court or receive required torture-risk screening before transfer to a country with no connection to their case, the same due-process gap the Supreme Court's June 23, 2025 stay had opened. This flight became the first of at least four sent to Eswatini over the following year, establishing a pattern in which the country held U.S. deportees in high-security detention for months without charge.

Updates

2026-04-10 — Eswatini's top court ruled the four men still held from this flight are entitled to lawyer access after 9-month fight [4, 5]

Eswatini's Supreme Court unanimously upheld a High Court order granting the four men from this flight still held at Matsapha Correctional Complex access to visits from local human-rights lawyer Sibusiso Nhlabatsi, rejecting the government's appeal after nearly nine months of litigation. One of the original five, a Jamaican national, had already been repatriated. Amnesty International called the ruling an important but insufficient step, saying it left the men's continuing arbitrary detention unresolved and urged Eswatini to disclose the legal basis for their detention or release them.

Why we recorded this

Due process requires that people facing removal from the United States be able to challenge that removal and undergo torture-risk screening before transfer to a country that is not their own. Here U.S. immigration authorities sent five men to Eswatini under a newly launched third-country removal arrangement, the first flight in what became a recurring pattern, with the men held in isolated units without charge or lawyer access. This archive records when removal is executed outside ordinary legal process and results in indefinite offshore detention.

Sources

US deports immigrants to African country of Eswatini amid rights concerns — Al Jazeera primary accessed July 8, 2026
U.S. sends 5 men to Eswatini amid Trump's third-country deportations — The Washington Post primary accessed July 8, 2026
Eswatini: Outrage over arrival of foreign US deportees in tiny African nation — CNN secondary accessed July 8, 2026
Eswatini top court rules US deportees entitled to lawyer access — Courthouse News Service (AFP) investigative accessed July 8, 2026
Eswatini: Supreme Court ruling on legal access offers limited relief for US deportees — Amnesty International investigative accessed July 8, 2026