CNN International sent a correspondent to the Central African Republic to find the people the United States had transferred there. Isobel Yeung described what she found on Democracy Now! on 1 September 2026.
“U.S. Deports Thousands to Countries They Don’t Know Under Secretive ‘Third Country’ Deal”. The broadcaster hosts the video and the transcript on its own site, so watching it there contacts nobody else. That is why it is linked rather than embedded.
Watch and read the transcript at Democracy Now! · Checked 11 September 2026.
The people she met came “from Afghanistan, from Iran, from Iraq, from Jordan”. They are “stuck inside these apartment buildings, unable to go out”. The Central African Republic “has given them three-month visas” and nothing beyond that, so nobody knows what happens on the ninety-first day. Many “did not know where they were going to until they stepped foot on the flight”.
And the point that makes this a pattern rather than an incident: “the majority of them that we spoke to, have been given these court protection orders by U.S. judges, which means that they cannot be deported back to their home countries”.
Set that against the sending state’s own advice about the destination. The United States Department of State tells American citizens not to travel to the Central African Republic at all. The advisory is Level 4, Do Not Travel, issued 15 January 2026, on grounds of unrest, crime, kidnapping, landmines, health and terrorism, and it records that the United States government has limited ability to help its own citizens there. The Coalition has read that advisory. It is a United States government document.
The United States tells its citizens not to go to this country for any reason, and sends other people there.
Recorded as not established. CNN’s own written report of this reporting, of 29 August 2026, is disallowed to automated retrieval and was not read. It has not been worked around. Everything attributed to the correspondent above is taken from the Democracy Now! interview, which the Coalition read in full. The dated record for this state is on the Central African Republic guide.