CBS News reported on 20 August 2026 that it had obtained internal United States government documents describing the expansion of removals to third countries. In the broadcaster’s own words, those documents show that more than 100 people from Afghanistan, Cuba, Nicaragua and other countries have been sent to eight African nations, and that while some have criminal records, many have no criminal history beyond immigration violations.
Internal documents are the strongest class of source in the reporting the Coalition has read on this programme. They are the government’s own account of what it is doing, not a description of it.
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Two things follow, and they pull in different directions.
The first is the criminal history point. It is made by the government’s own documents rather than by anyone advocating on behalf of the people moved. The justification offered in public for this programme has rested heavily on the character of the people being removed. The documents the broadcaster obtained do not support that account for many of them.
The second is a caution about arithmetic. Refugees International, counting to 15 August 2026, records more than 330 people sent to countries in Africa. CBS, reading internal documents, describes more than 100 people sent to eight African nations. These are not the same measurement and they should not be added, reconciled or treated as a contradiction. One is a monitoring project’s running count across the continent; the other is what a particular set of documents happens to record. The Coalition publishes both and merges neither.
Still open. Whether the eight African states named in those documents are the same eight among the thirteen African country guides the Coalition maintains has not been established. Until it is, no guide claims to be one of the eight.