The Trump Administration has dramatically increased the practice of deporting non-citizens to third countries. As of May 2026, more than 21,000 people have been removed to at least 24 different countries. In many cases, the non-citizen has no connection to the third country and in some case, has never even been to that country. Upon arrival in the the third country, non-citizens can be subject to arbitrary detention, human rights abuses, and sometimes, return to their home country where they fear persecution.

Here, we'll take a look at what the U.S. government is doing and who might be vulnerable to a third country deportation.
Earlier this year, Senate Democrats on the Foreign Affairs Committee released a report, which found that the "Trump Administration has expanded and institutionalized a system in which the United States urges or coerces countries to accept migrants who are not their citizens, often through arrangements that are costly, wasteful and poorly monitored." "Deporting migrants to countries they have no connection to—once a rare tool used only in exceptional circumstances—has become a routine instrument of diplomacy."

The report reached three major conclusions: "First, the Administration’s use of third country deportations is coming at great taxpayer cost." "The United States has spent tens of millions of dollars to move a relatively small number of individuals to third countries." "Second, the Administration is conducting questionable deals by making direct payments primarily to corrupt and unstable foreign governments with track records of public corruption, human rights abuses and human trafficking, relying on assurances that these countries will comply with certain obligations." "Yet there is no evidence the State Department is monitoring how U.S. funds are used, tracking the treatment of deportees or enforcing the terms of these agreements." "In some cases, U.S. officials have been instructed not to follow up at all." "Third, the Administration is not being transparent with Congress or the American people about the extent of its deal-making with foreign governments... including what additional pressures and sweeteners it may be applying or offering up."

According to Third Country Deportation Watch (TCDW), a project sponsored by Refugees International and Human Rights First, the Trump Administration has also "imposed or threatened third countries with visa bans, deportation of their own nationals, tariffs, and other trade barriers," and has ignored or condoned "corruption, repression, and violations of human rights by governments in third countries."

In other words, the U.S. government is ignoring our own human rights obligations and bribing or intimidating countries into accepting third-country nationals with little assurance that those people will be treated humanely. This sounds more like human trafficking than any sort of rules-based deportation system.

What countries are involved in this process? And what does this mean for asylum seekers and people granted Withholding of Removal or protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture?

The large majority of people removed to third countries are sent to Mexico. Of the approximately 21,000 deported third-country nationals, 18,000 went to Mexico. Most of these people are from Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. According to TCDW, "Cubans and Venezuelans are often released on the street without immigration documentation," while "Guatemalans, Hondurans, and Salvadorans are typically deported by bus to their countries of origin"--even when they have a demonstrated fear of return to their country.

Of the remaining 3,000 third-country nationals, nearly half (1,460) were sent to Guatemala, more than 400 were sent to Costa Rica, and about 250 went to El Salvador, where many were detained in the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (known by its Spanish acronym, CECOT). The remaining 1,000 people were deported to countries all around the world. Some were detained upon arrival, others were sent back to their home countries, and still others were left alone with no legal status or means of support.

Many of the targeted individuals seem to be people who arrived in the United States to seek asylum, and who were subject to expedited removal proceedings or who were simply expelled at the border without an opportunity to present their claim for protection. Others are people with final removal orders who the U.S. government could not send to the home country (maybe because the home country would not accept its deported nationals).

Still other deportees are people granted Withholding of Removal (WOR) or protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Such people cannot be deported to their home country, but they can be deported to a third country. Prior to the second Trump Administration, people with WOR or CAT were safe; deportation to a third country was extremely rare. For that reason, we sometimes settled an Immigration Court case by accepting WOR or CAT, or we did not appeal if a client received protection under one of these laws. But the second Trump Administration changed the rules, and so people who were once safe are now more vulnerable. So far, we don't have a good sense of how many such people are being deported to third countries or where they are going. The TCDW report documents 18 people with WOR or CAT who were sent to the Central African Republic, and up to 36 more who were deported to Cameroon.

There are also reports of asylum seekers who were deported to a third country before they were able to present their application. I have not yet seen details about these cases, but I expect they involve Asylum Cooperative Agreements, where certain applicants have their asylum application "pretermited" (denied without a hearing) and are then ordered to go to a "safe" third country to seek asylum there. Of course, many of these countries are not really safe, and many lack a functioning or fair system to evaluate protection claims. Pretermission under these circumstances applies only to people who arrived in the U.S. on or after November 19, 2019, does not apply to unaccompanied minors, and seems mostly to be used against people who entered the U.S. without a visa.

I suppose the silver lining here is that aside from the removals to Mexico, the number of third country deportations is fairly modest. This is due to the difficulty and expense of sending individuals to third countries, and also to the limited willingness of countries to accept our third-country deportees. Whether due to cost, inefficiency or legal challenges, we can hope that this cruel policy will eventually end, and we will remember our moral and legal obligations to people coming to us for protection.

Originally posted on the Asylumist: www.Asylumist.com