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Third-Country Removals

The Record

Named people and identified cohorts whose treatment after transfer to a third country is a matter of public record, with the source for each.

The law described in this project turns on what happens to a person after he arrives in a third country. This section collects the cases in which that is documented: a named person, or an identified group, whose treatment after transfer is recorded in a court filing, a monitoring report, or the reporting of a named news organisation. Each entry states its source. Where the Coalition has the source document, it is linked. Where it has only the report of the source, the entry says so, and the document will be linked when it is obtained.

Jorge Felix Ibarra-Perez: two days in Mexico

A Cuban national who entered the United States at Nogales in September 2019. On 10 January 2020 an immigration judge ordered him removed, denied asylum under the transit ban then in force, and granted withholding of removal to Cuba. On 16 January 2020 he was removed to Mexico, a country never designated in his order. He was threatened by gang members, and was back at the Mariposa port of entry on 17 January. On 16 March 2020 the immigration judge reopened his proceedings on due process grounds. On 16 July 2020 he was granted asylum.1

He later sued the United States for damages. A district court dismissed the suit for want of jurisdiction in January 2024. In August 2025 the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that his challenge to the post-hearing selection of Mexico was not barred; in June 2026 the court declined to rehear the case en banc over a dissent joined by twelve judges.2 The government’s own adjudicator, given the hearing that had been skipped, found him entitled to more protection than he held when he was put across the border.

C.O.: three countries

Monitoring organisations report the case of a man holding protection under the Convention against El Salvador who was sent by the United States to Mexico, transferred by Mexican officials to Guatemala, and moved by Guatemala to El Salvador, where he was detained and threatened with confinement at CECOT.3 The Coalition has the report; it does not yet have the underlying filing. If the account is confirmed, it records a chain of three countries ending in the one his protection concerned.

Ghana: twenty-four hours

Human Rights First reports that a Nigerian woman holding United States withholding of removal was sent to Ghana and returned by Ghana to Nigeria within approximately twenty-four hours.4 In separate litigation, five plaintiffs holding withholding or protection under the Convention were transported to Ghana; Ghana began returning them to the countries their protection concerned; one had already been sent onward when the case was filed. The court denied emergency relief, largely because the plaintiffs were in Ghanaian custody and a United States court cannot order a foreign government to keep them or not to deport them. It did not reach the question of whether the transfer had been lawful.5

Equatorial Guinea: twenty-nine of twenty-nine

Reuters reported that persons transferred from the United States were confined in a government-controlled hotel in Malabo with restricted movement and access. Monitoring organisations report that all twenty-nine persons in the first two cohorts were ultimately returned to their home countries, including persons who had held United States protection. In April 2026 United Nations special procedures, with the participation of the mandate on torture, addressed the situation of persons deported from the United States and detained in Malabo.6

Sierra Leone: told on arrival

Monitoring organisations report that the first group transferred to Sierra Leone consisted largely of persons holding United States protection, and that arrivals were told Sierra Leone was a temporary transit location, that long-term settlement was not permitted, and that the authorities would return them to their home countries. Many are reported to have been subsequently returned. The Associated Press independently reported protected asylum seekers facing return to the countries they feared.7

Cameroon: the instrument’s two clauses

The arrangement with Cameroon is reported to prohibit onward refoulement and, in the same document, to contemplate assisted voluntary returns supported by the United States. Monitoring organisations report that numerous transferees held withholding or protection under the Convention, that protected transferees were detained or pressed toward repatriation, and that at least one person holding withholding returned to Morocco and is in hiding.8 The Coalition has not seen the instrument. When it has, the two clauses will be quoted here side by side.

Democratic Republic of the Congo: fifteen

Fifteen third-country nationals are reported transferred on 17 April 2026, all or nearly all holding United States protection against return to their countries of origin. A majority are reported to have subsequently returned to their countries through assisted-return arrangements. A Colombian national holding protection described being pressed to decide whether to return while holding only temporary status and lacking identity documents.9

Uganda: two of eight

Eight asylum seekers from Mauritania, Angola, Ethiopia, Mali, Togo and Guinea are reported transferred on 2 April 2026. By July, two had received refugee status in Uganda, four had returned to their countries, one had left Uganda, and one was awaiting repatriation.10 This is the case that shows a receiving state can grant status to some of the people sent to it while most go home, and it is why this project makes no claim about the programme as a whole that Uganda would refute.

Eswatini: after the sentence

Amnesty International documented arrivals at the Matsapha Correctional Complex in July 2025, October 2025 and March 2026, of men with no ties to Eswatini, under an arrangement reported to provide for up to 160 persons and $5.1 million in United States funding. Some transferred persons are reported to have remained in detention after completing sentences in the United States.11

Kilmar Abrego Garcia: a withholding order, and El Salvador

A man holding withholding of removal against El Salvador was removed to El Salvador and held at CECOT. The government conceded before the Supreme Court that the removal was unlawful. The Court held that the district court’s order properly required the government to facilitate his release from foreign custody and to handle his case as if the removal had not occurred.12 The district court later ordered seventy-two hours’ written notice to him and his counsel of any intended third country before any further removal.

Maher Arar: the choice, in the reports

The published opinion in Arar v. Ashcroft records that Arar was offered a choice between removal to Syria, where he feared torture, and remaining in detention. He was sent, by way of Jordan, to Syria. His claims were dismissed on jurisdictional and other grounds, and no court ruled on whether presenting him with that choice was lawful.13 The case is two decades old. It is included because it records, in a federal court’s own opinion, the fact pattern that the constructive refoulement concept describes.

Wang Zong Xiao: once, a court said no

In 1993 a federal district court found that the government, having brought a Chinese witness to the United States to testify and having placed him in a position where truthful testimony meant execution on return, had forced him into a Hobson’s choice that shocked the conscience, and it permanently enjoined his return to Chinese custody. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in 1996. The court later set release conditions and ordered the issuance of immigration documentation.14 No court has extended the decision beyond a government witness, and one asked to do so declined. It is included because it is the one case in which a federal court barred a return to torture on substantive constitutional grounds, and the injunction stands.

This page describes the public record. It is not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for a lawyer. The Coalition does not represent individuals. Organisations that do are listed under Where to Find Help.

References

  1. Ibarra-Perez v. United States, 154 F.4th 989 (9th Cir. 2025), Justia; Ibarra-Perez v. Howard, No. CV-20-00739-PHX-DWL (D. Ariz. 2020); Ibarra-Perez v. United States, No. CV-22-01100 (D. Ariz. 19 Jan. 2024).
  2. Order denying rehearing en banc, No. 24-631 (9th Cir. 25 June 2026). FindLaw [confirm].
  3. As reported by monitoring organisations [source document to be linked].
  4. Human Rights First [publication to be linked].
  5. D.A. v. Noem, as reported [order to be linked].
  6. Reuters; monitoring organisations; United Nations special procedures communication, April 2026 [reference number and link to be added].
  7. Monitoring organisations; Associated Press [links to be added].
  8. Monitoring organisations [instrument and report to be linked].
  9. Monitoring organisations [report to be linked].
  10. Al Jazeera, 2 April 2026; monitoring organisations.
  11. Amnesty International, 11 March 2026; Human Rights Watch, 23 September 2025.
  12. Noem v. Abrego Garcia, No. 24A949 (U.S. 7 Apr. 2025). Cornell.
  13. Arar v. Ashcroft, 414 F. Supp. 2d 250 (E.D.N.Y. 2006); 585 F.3d 559 (2d Cir. 2009).
  14. Wang Zong Xiao v. Reno, 837 F. Supp. 1506 (N.D. Cal. 1993); 81 F.3d 808 (9th Cir. 1996); 930 F. Supp. 1377 (N.D. Cal. 1996).