US sends third-country deportees under secrecy to the small African kingdom of Eswatini

https://apnews.com/article/deportees-trump-africa-eswatini-migrant-africa-8d10c5a1de7ba50cbea9712b6b5fbfbc

US sends third-country deportees under secrecy to the small African kingdom of Eswatini
By GERALD IMRAY and MICHELLE GUMEDE
Updated 6:55 AM CDT, July 16, 2025

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — The United States sent five men it describes as “barbaric” criminals to the small African nation of Eswatini in an expansion of the Trump administration’s largely secretive third-country deportation program, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.

The U.S. has already deported eight men to another African country, South Sudan, after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on sending people to countries where they have no ties. The South Sudanese government has declined to say where those men, also described as violent criminals, are after it took custody of them nearly two weeks ago.

In a late-night post on X, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the men sent to Eswatini, who are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos, had arrived on a plane, but didn’t say when or where.

She said they were all convicted criminals and “individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.”

The men “have been terrorizing American communities” but were now “off of American soil,” McLaughlin added.

Eswatini, previously called Swaziland, is a country of about 1.2 million people between South Africa and Mozambique. It is one of the world’s last remaining absolute monarchies and the last in Africa. King Mswati III has ruled by decree since 1986.

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