News & Reports
Reports and analysis on torture prevention, OPCAT ratifications, UN treaty body sessions, and human rights documentation, sourced from OHCHR, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Coalition monitoring work.
What the Removal Figures Show, and What the Government Stopped Publishing
Mass deportation is a claim about scale. It can be tested against the government’s own statistics up to January 2025, when the government stopped publishing them. Removals are rising sharply and may reach a historic high, and nobody outside the government can confirm it.
A Federal Court Set the Third-Country Removal Policy Aside. It Is Not in Force.
On 25 February 2026 the District of Massachusetts set the government’s third-country removal policy aside as unlawful. Three weeks later the First Circuit stayed that judgment pending appeal. The appeal was argued on 13 May 2026 and has not been decided, so the policy the district court struck down is the policy still being applied.
Court Orders Release and Reinstates Supervision After ICE Gave No Reasons for Re-Detention
A federal court in California ordered the release of a man re-detained after years on an order of supervision, finding the notice he was given stated no reasons for the revocation. The government told the court it had no opposition argument to present.
She Won Her Case, and Was Deported Anyway: A Maryland Nurse Sent Through Ghana
On September 17, 2025 an immigration judge granted Rabbiatu Kuyateh withholding of removal to Sierra Leone, and both sides waived appeal. Forty-nine days later the United States flew her to Ghana without telling her where she was going, and six days after that Ghanaian officers dragged her out of a hotel and flew her to Sierra Leone.
Ghana Offered a Safe Haven. What the July 31 Flight Met Instead
Ghana's foreign minister said on camera in September 2025 that his country was offering itself as a safe haven to West Africans deported by the United States, and that those who arrived could stay ninety days. Ten months later a flight landed in Accra carrying more than thirty people, every one of whom held a United States finding that they could not safely be returned home. Within a day, some of them were.
Before Ghana, Djibouti: What ICE’s Own Declaration Says About U.S. Third-Country Removals
Four months before the deportation flights to Ghana, a court order stranded eight men on a United States naval base in Djibouti. What conditions were like there is not a matter of allegation. It is set out by the government itself, in a sworn declaration by a senior ICE official, and the Coalition publishes that declaration in full.
Why Facilities Holding Transferred People Fall Within OPCAT Monitoring
A facility holding people transferred from another state is a place of detention like any other. In an OPCAT State Party it falls within the National Preventive Mechanism's visiting mandate.
Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, arts. 1, 4, 19, 20; Convention against Torture, art. 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, art. 9.
Withholding and CAT Deferral: What the Protection Covers, and What It Does Not
Withholding of removal and deferral under the Convention Against Torture are findings about one named country. Understanding that limit is essential when a transfer to a different country is proposed.
Convention against Torture, art. 3; 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(2)-(3); 8 C.F.R. §§ 208.16, 208.17, 208.18; Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, § 2242; American Immigration Council, third-country removals fact sheet.
A Lawful Order, Carried Out in a Way the Constitution May Not Permit
In death penalty cases a court may stay an execution because the method would be cruel, without disturbing the sentence. This article is about the second question only: not whether a person may be removed, but how it is being done to them.
Special Rapporteur on Torture: Assessments Must Cover the Whole Chain of Transfer
On 28 July 2026 the UN Special Rapporteur on torture addressed states overhauling their removal systems, emphasising individualised assessment and analysis of the entire chain of transfer.
OHCHR, 'No shortcuts around torture ban as governments overhaul removal systems, UN expert warns', Special Rapporteur on torture, 28 July 2026.