A Criminal Conviction Does Not End Protection Against Torture
Part 1 of 7. A conviction and a final removal order can make a person removable from the United States. Under the 1998 statute that implements the Convention Against Torture, its regulations, and decisions of the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits and the Supreme Court, neither one permits removal to a country where torture is likely.
Updates – 5 November 2026
Third Country Deportation Watch recorded the first transfers to the Dominican Republic and further flights to Panama, Paraguay, Ghana, Cameroon, Liberia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Eswatini, Burundi and the Central African Republic. The Foreign Minister of Jamaica said nine of the 22 people sent there had left, a court in Arizona was told that a man sent to Equatorial Guinea was booked to fly back on 4 November, Human Rights First reported that a fourth flight to Iran may follow, and four amicus briefs were filed in the Supreme Court.
Emails Show ICE Worked With Iran on Three Deportation Flights. Human Rights First Reports That a Fourth May Follow.
The Associated Press reported in August that emails show ICE working with Iranian officials on three deportation flights to Iran. A federal court in Washington has denied a preliminary injunction in a challenge to the alleged sharing of information about Iranian asylum seekers, which the government denies. Human Rights First reports that a fourth flight may follow, and Iranians have been among the people sent to the Central African Republic.
What changed in October 2026
Jamaica received its first group of people from the United States, Sierra Leone a fifth flight, and a federal court ordered a man brought back from Equatorial Guinea. Eswatini and Burundi made statements, ICE told courts that flights to Uganda are paused, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First published new counts, and the Supreme Court set its timetable.
Third-Country Removal Is a Pretext for Refoulement. The United States Is Sending People Its Judges Protected Back to Torture and Persecution Through Transit Countries in Africa and Latin America.
People US immigration judges protected from return are being flown to third countries that send them home or hold them until they go. Courts, sworn declarations, the receiving governments and 60 Minutes document it. The Coalition sets out the record and the law.
He Reported for More Than Twenty Years. A Federal Appeals Court Says ICE Broke Its Own Rules When It Took Him Back.
On 21 October 2026 the Tenth Circuit held that ICE broke its own rules by not promptly interviewing a man it re-detained after more than twenty years on supervision, and that re-detention does not restart the six-month Zadvydas period.
What United States Courts Have Held on Removal to a Third Country, and What They Have Not
What United States courts have held on the protection, the power to remove to a third country, diplomatic assurances, detention, notice, jurisdiction and proof, and the questions no court had decided as of 3 September 2026.
Supreme Court Pauses the Third-Country Ruling and Will Hear the Case on 9 December
On 29 September 2026 the Supreme Court stayed the D.V.D. judgment that had set aside the government’s third-country removal policy, and agreed to decide the case itself. Three Justices would have refused the stay.
Liberia Agreed in September 2025. Liberians Were Told in August 2026.
The agreement under which people are flown from the United States to Liberia was published by the Department of State in March 2026 and announced to Liberians in August. It sets no limit on numbers, provides nothing about lawyers, detention or monitoring, and makes signed operating procedures a condition of any transfer. No such procedures have been produced.
Fourteen People Won Protection in American Courts. Now They Are Before the African Commission.
On 5 June 2026 five organisations filed a complaint against Equatorial Guinea at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, for fourteen people sent there from the United States. Every one of them had been granted protection by an American immigration judge. Three months on, the Commission has announced nothing.
Court and administrative decisions
Decided by courts and bodies in the United States, latest first.
- Lopez Gonzalez v. MullinD. Minn. · October 30, 2026
- A.M.A.S. v. MullinD. Ariz. · October 29, 2026
- Vega Oramas v. BondiD. Nev. · October 28, 2026
- A.M.A.S. v. MullinD. Ariz. · October 27, 2026
- Emetazi v. Warden, Richwood Correctional CenterW.D. La. · October 22, 2026