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What changed in October 2026

October 27, 2026

What changed in October 2026

News. What was reported between the Supreme Court’s stay of 29 September 2026 and 27 October 2026. Every statement is linked, where it is made, to the source it comes from, and the text says whether that source is a court record, a sworn statement, a government’s own words, a human rights organisation or a news report. Where sources disagree, both are given. It is not advice.

In the four weeks after the Supreme Court stayed the D.V.D. judgment, the United States sent its first group of people to Jamaica and a fifth flight to Sierra Leone, and an ICE charter landed in Equatorial Guinea a day after an ICE officer told a federal court that the third-country removal mission there had been cancelled. A federal judge ordered the government to bring back a man it had sent to Equatorial Guinea. Eswatini said it had repatriated ten people, Burundi said it would accept people from the United States, and ICE told federal courts in Michigan that flights to Uganda are paused because of Ebola. Human Rights Watch counted, from ICE data, nearly 28,000 people sent to more than 50 countries, and Human Rights First reported that at least 114 people sent to 10 third countries have since been returned to the countries where a United States judge had found they would more likely than not be persecuted or tortured. The Supreme Court will hear the case on 9 December 2026. Each item below is dated, linked to its source, and linked to the page on this site that now carries it.

29 September: Burundi says it will accept people from the United States

On 29 September, the day of the Supreme Court’s stay, Burundi’s presidential spokesperson, Nancy Ninette Mutoni, announced that Burundi will receive people sent from the United States. According to the Associated Press, she said Burundi would accept only people who were not facing prosecution and had no links to terrorism, and did not say when anyone would arrive or how many people Burundi had agreed to receive. Reuters reported that the announcement gave no details of numbers, timing, or financial terms, and that a spokesperson for the foreign ministry said on 30 September that the details of the agreement were not yet available. The same Associated Press report records that, according to lawyers for the people on it, a flight of about 70 people from Louisiana to Burundi, Rwanda and the Central African Republic had been cancelled. On 23 October an ICE officer swore that an ICE charter left Malabo that afternoon for Bujumbura (below, 23 October). On this site: Burundi.

4 and 8 October: Eswatini says it has repatriated ten people

On 4 October a Laotian man held at Matsapha, Eswatini’s maximum-security prison, since July 2025 was released. His lawyer, Tin Thanh Nguyen, told the Associated Press that he was now being deported to Laos, and said: He sat there for more than a year. No notice, no hearing, no chance to object. On 8 October the acting government spokesperson, Thabile Mdluli, gave Daily Maverick the government’s own figures: ten people repatriated between September 2025 and October 2026, one each to Jamaica, Cambodia, Mauritania, Somalia, Cameroon, Yemen, Belize and Laos and two to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), out of 31 people sent from the United States, with 21 still in Eswatini awaiting repatriation. The government will not name the countries the ten passed through: We are deliberately not mentioning the countries of transit. It said: We are not expecting any new TCNs at the moment. Third Country Deportation Watch counts 32 people sent to Eswatini, not 31. The government told TimesLIVE that the people returned to Yemen, Belize and Laos went voluntarily upon their own request. Whether any of the ten held United States protection against the country they were sent to has not been reported. The monitoring project records that the flight of 8 July 2026, which carried people from countries including Cameroon, Mauritania, Belize and the DR Congo, included people holding withholding of removal or protection under the Convention against Torture; which of them held it is not reported. On this site: Eswatini.

6 October: a court orders the government to bring a man back from Equatorial Guinea

In an order of 6 October 2026 (A.M.A.S. v. Mullin, No. 2:26-cv-06601 (D. Ariz.)), Judge John C. Hinderaker held that the removal of an Egyptian man, protected against return to Egypt, to Equatorial Guinea violated the Due Process Clause, and ordered the Department of Homeland Security to facilitate his release and return. The court found it unrebutted that he has since been held under armed guard; threatened at gunpoint; and arrested, beaten, and held incommunicado by Equatorial Guinean authorities. Amnesty International, in Urgent Action AFR 24/1476/2026 of 18 September 2026, records that on 11 September the authorities arrested him and an Eritrean man also sent there from the United States, and that Police officers covered the two men’s heads with a bag and beat them in their heads, backs and ribs. On 9 October, NPR reported, the administration said it had started to facilitate the return; the Department of Homeland Security told NPR that he will not remain in the U.S. Whether he has been brought back has not been reported. On this site: Equatorial Guinea.

8 October: Human Rights Watch counts nearly 28,000 people sent to more than 50 countries

In “To Scare People”: US Expulsions of Third-Country Nationals to Countries in Africa, Human Rights Watch reports from ICE data that between 20 January 2025 and 5 August 2026 nearly 28,000 people were transferred to more than 50 countries that are neither their country of citizenship nor habitual residence, 536 of them to countries in Africa (HRW, To Scare People, p. 10). Its summary finds that people sent to Eswatini, Ghana and South Sudan were arbitrarily detained in those countries, and that Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and Ghana sent some people onward to risk of persecution or torture in their home countries. The report draws on interviews between February and July 2026 with 24 third-country nationals, and recommends that the United States suspend all third country removals. Its count is higher than those of the monitoring projects, which give over 25,000 (Third Country Deportation Watch) and at least 25,447 (Forbidden Stories); the counts are built differently. On this site: The Countries, which sets the counts side by side.

8 and 22 October: ICE tells courts that flights to Uganda are paused because of Ebola

In habeas cases brought by people ordered removed to Uganda under the asylum cooperative agreement, ICE has told federal courts in Michigan that removal flights to Uganda have been paused since about June 2026 because of an Ebola outbreak. On 8 October the court in Mbituyimana v. Putra (W.D. Mich.) recorded that ICE has confirmed that flights to Uganda ‘are paused because of Ebola.’ and granted the petition. On 22 October the court in Mohameddou v. Putra (W.D. Mich.) ordered a Mauritanian man released, on an ICE declaration of 9 October that all asylum cooperative agreement flights to Uganda were paused because of an Ebola outbreak. Earlier rulings record the same pause from June 2026 (Bowba, 3 September; El Maaloum, 16 September). In an earlier round of the Mbituyimana case, however, an ICE declarant had stated, as the 8 October opinion records, that As of June 29, 2026, ICE confirmed that removal missions to Uganda were being completed monthly, with approximately 10 individuals removed each month. The two accounts have not been reconciled. The source for the pause is ICE’s own statements to the courts. On this site: Uganda.

9 October: Human Rights First on people returned despite their protection

Human Rights First announced a report, “In the Middle of the Night, They Come and Get You”: Systematic U.S. Government Pursuit of Refugees and Torture Survivors Granted Protection by U.S. Judges, based on more than 50 interviews with directly impacted individuals and legal service providers. Its press release states that the administration has forcibly transported at least 310 people with withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) to 15 third countries, including some of the most dangerous places in the world, and that At least 114 individuals sent to 10 third countries have since been returned to the very countries where a U.S. judge had found they more likely than not face persecution and/or torture, even though the vast majority of the written agreements contain purported diplomatic assurances. The press release does not list the countries behind either figure. On this site: the Coalition’s commentary of 26 October, Third-Country Removal Is a Pretext for Refoulement, sets out the documented returns country by country.

12 October: a fifth flight to Sierra Leone, and an Amnesty appeal

On 12 October ICE removed eight people to Sierra Leone. In Urgent Action AFR 51/1599/2026 of 23 October 2026, Amnesty International says this is the fifth flight carrying third country nationals to Sierra Leone under the agreement, bringing the total number of arrivals to at least 45 people. It names three of the eight, each of whom United States immigration judges had protected from return to their countries of origin, and reports that they are held in a guesthouse they may not leave without an escort, with no visits from independent lawyers or observers, and that they are currently at immediate risk of being unlawfully returned to their countries of origin. It records that the government announced on 4 June 2026 that all nine people on the first flight, of 20 May, had been repatriated, and that the second group, of 13 people who arrived on 18 June, had all been repatriated to their respective countries of origin by 1 August. It describes what appears to be a ‘revolving door’ policy and practice of the Sierra Leonean government, consisting of swiftly repatriating those removed from the US without any determination of the risks of serious human rights violations they may face upon return to their countries of origin. Reuters reported the appeal the same day, and that the three hold withholding of removal. Amnesty and Reuters date the flight 12 October; CBS2 Iowa reports that one of the three, a mother from Iowa City, was deported on 13 October and was told she could stay in Sierra Leone only until 26 October. Third Country Deportation Watch, whose figures run to 29 August, records at least 43 people on four flights. On this site: Sierra Leone.

13 October: Jamaica receives its first group

Twenty-two people, fifteen men and seven women, arrived at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston on 13 October, the first transfer under the memorandum of understanding of June 2026. The Gleaner reports that they were granted a 90-day landing, that the International Organization for Migration has full responsibility for them and that they are expected to return to their home countries within 14 days, that Jamaica rejected one person and two were withdrawn, and that Minister Horace Chang said a second group should arrive in two weeks. The Jamaica Observer reports that the group represents seven nationalities, mostly Latin American, and that no Caribbean Community (Caricom) national was among the group; a second Gleaner report, citing Minister Chang, describes them as nationals of Ecuador and a European country. The two accounts have not been reconciled. In its statement published by the Jamaica Information Service on 13 October, the government said this is a transit arrangement intended to facilitate the return of Third Country Nationals, with a maximum of 25 persons per fortnight. On this site: Jamaica.

23 October: a charter lands in Malabo after ICE told a court the removal mission was cancelled

On 22 October an ICE officer, named by Raw Story as Andrea Chiriboga Villacis, declared in the Egyptian man’s case in Arizona that the anticipated third-country removal mission to Equatorial Guinea had been cancelled, as The American Prospect reports. The next day an ICE charter, a Boeing 767, landed in Malabo. The Prospect, citing flight data, puts the landing at 4:40 p.m. local time, and reports that the flight documents listed 25 detainees to be expelled in Equatorial Guinea. A sworn declaration by Fernando Valenzuela of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, filed the same day, says that the aircraft, N703KW, landed at 1:35 p.m. local time to repatriate two Equatorial Guinean nationals, that This was not a third country removal, that it also carried a large number of other aliens onboard from other countries, and that it left at 3:35 p.m. for Bujumbura, Burundi. The two landing times differ and the matter is unresolved. The Prospect had reported on 21 October planned stops in Senegal, Equatorial Guinea, Burundi and the Central African Republic, with 25, 30 and 100 people listed for the last three. How many people left the aircraft in Malabo, whether it reached Bujumbura and Bangui, and who left it there, has not been reported. On this site: Equatorial Guinea and Burundi.

6 October to 9 December: the Supreme Court timetable

The docket of Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D., No. 26-426, records that the Court requested the record from the First Circuit on 6 October and received it on 9 October. On 23 October the government filed its brief on the merits with the joint appendix, which reproduces the First Circuit’s opinion of 18 September 2026 (J.A. 1 to 47) and the guidance documents of 30 March and 9 July 2025 (J.A. 306 to 313). Invited by the Court to name any further questions, the government named none: We have determined that no additional questions warrant briefing here. The respondents’ brief is due on 16 November, the government’s reply by 2 p.m. on 1 December, and the case is set for argument on Wednesday 9 December 2026. The stay of 29 September lasts until the Court’s judgment is sent down. On this site: the Supreme Court stay and The Law.

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