Decisions

E.D. Cal. June 27, 2026 Third country: Equatorial Guinea

An immigration judge had ordered the petitioner removed to Egypt but granted him withholding of removal to Egypt in 2018. In 2026 the government sought to remove him instead to Equatorial Guinea, and placed him on a charter manifest for 28 April 2026. The court recorded that he “had no knowledge of respondents’ intent to remove him to Equatorial Guinea at the time he filed his habeas petition.” The court granted the petition and enjoined the respondent from removing him “to a third country without notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard in reopened removal proceedings with a hearing before an Immigration Judge.” The record contains the government’s own account of how a removal of this kind is documented. A declaration filed by the Department of Homeland Security states: “His acceptance by Equatorial Guinea and placement on the manifest for this charter serves as the travel document in Petitioner’s removal.” The government relied on a Third Country Removal Agreement signed by the Department of State with the Government of Equatorial Guinea on 23 October 2025, said to contain assurances that people removed there “will not be subjected to persecution or torture,” which the State Department had determined credible. The court recorded that the respondents did not produce a copy of that agreement. The court declined to treat country-level assurances as a substitute for an individual decision, quoting Mbaba v. Perez: reliance on “blanket assurances is no substitute for an individualized determination through a proceeding that is appropriately calibrated to provide notice and an opportunity to be heard.” Uncontested expert evidence before the court described more than two dozen third-country nationals removed by the United States to Equatorial Guinea since November 2025 who had subsequently been sent on to their countries of origin.

Third-country removal Notice Diplomatic assurances Travel documents Convention Against Torture Withholding of removal Chain refoulement Habeas corpus

Caution The agreement on which the removal rested was never produced to the court that was deciding whether the removal was lawful. The assurances are described in the record as the government’s representations and were not the subject of any judicial finding. The record is internally inconsistent on documentation. An earlier order in the same case, summarising a deportation officer’s declaration, states that travel documents for removal to Equatorial Guinea were received on 2 April 2026. That does not sit with the declaration that the manifest serves as the travel document. Nothing published resolves the two accounts, and the Coalition records both. The date above is that of the order adopting the findings and recommendations. The findings and recommendations themselves are dated 5 June 2026.