ICE deported gay Moroccan asylum-seeker to Cameroon, circumventing judge's order barring removal to Morocco

On January 15, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported Farah, a 21-year-old gay asylum-seeker from Morocco, from ICE custody in Alexandria, Louisiana to Cameroon — one of nine people on a flight of which at least eight held U.S. immigration-judge findings against removal to their home countries. Farah was three days from a hearing on her release when she was handcuffed and put on the plane; she had never been to Cameroon and had no connection to the country. In August 2025, an immigration judge had granted her a protection order specifically barring her removal to Morocco, ruling that returning her there would endanger her life — Morocco criminalizes homosexuality, and Farah had fled after her own family and her partner's family beat her and tried to kill her over the relationship. Her partner, who was denied a protection order, had already been deported to Morocco.

The deportation used a third-country removal arrangement the Trump administration reached with Cameroon through diplomatic notes dated December 8, 2025 — a mechanism DHS has expanded specifically to route people around judges' country-specific protection orders, since an order barring removal to one country does not on its face bar removal to a different one. DHS characterized the practice as "applying the law as written," saying that when a judge finds a person has no right to remain in the country, the government will remove them. An immigration lawyer who verified Farah's case, Alma David of the Novo Legal Group, described the maneuver as a legal "loophole" that let the government sidestep a protection order it could not lawfully defy outright, saying it violated deportees' due process rights, U.S. immigration law, and the government's own procedures.

Held in a Cameroonian government detention facility in Yaoundé, Farah was offered no safe option: Cameroon also criminalizes homosexuality, and when she told officials there that she could not remain, she was flown onward to Morocco — the exact country the U.S. judge's order was meant to keep her out of. She is now in hiding there, telling the Associated Press she fears being tracked down again by the family that beat her. "What was done to me was unfair," she said. "A normal deportation would have been fair, but to go through so much and lose so much, only to be deported in such a way, is cruel."

Updates

2026-02-25 — Federal judge ruled third-country deportation notice policy unlawful [4, 5]

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy of the federal district court in Massachusetts ruled the Trump administration's practice of deporting migrants to third countries without meaningful notice or a chance to contest removal unlawful, in an 81-page order that stayed the ruling 15 days to allow a government appeal. Murphy's order specifically cited "the secret January deportation of nine people to Cameroon" as an example of DHS carrying out third-country removals with inadequate notice — the same flight that carried Farah.

2026-03-16 — First Circuit stayed Murphy's injunction pending appeal [6, 7]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit granted the Trump administration's motion to stay Judge Murphy's February 25 order pending appeal, in a 2-1 decision — Judges Jeffrey Howard and Seth Aframe in the majority, Judge Lara Montecalvo dissenting — lifting the block on third-country deportations while the underlying challenge, D.V.D. v. DHS, proceeds. The court set an expedited briefing schedule, with merits briefing due by April 20, 2026, and indicated oral argument would follow soon after; no final ruling had been issued as of this review.