Paraguay

The Coalition’s position. This state agreed to receive people who are not its nationals, moved against their will, under a programme United States federal courts have found punitive and whose purpose was stated publicly before the agreement was made. On the Coalition’s position it has knowingly facilitated that programme, and the wrong is complete at the moment of agreement. Nothing on this page is offered as mitigation. What a receiving state agrees to.

What has happened

Paraguay is the clearest case in this section, and it is clear in an unexpected direction. The mechanics of arrival are unusually well documented and unusually mild. Nobody is held in a cell. The Foreign Minister met the first flight in person. And then, on the governments’ own accounts, the people sent go home.

The five flights

The figures are better evidenced than for most states in this section. Individual flights are corroborated by named news agencies quoting named officials, and they cross-check against the sending side: Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry counts 35 Ecuadorians sent to Paraguay, and 23 of those are accounted for by the August flight alone. A second international tracker does not list Paraguay at all.

Who is party to it, and what cannot be read

The counterparty is worth a line of its own. This instrument is not between the Republic of Paraguay and the United States of America. It is between two United States federal departments and the Paraguayan National Commission for Refugees and Stateless Persons, a body of the state rather than the state. It is styled a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in the examination of protection requests. The United States Secretary of State nonetheless announced it publicly as a safe third country agreement. The Coalition notes the mismatch and does not resolve it.

The text cannot be read. A structural query of the official print returns image only, no text layer. The only extractable words in the entire notice are the cover paragraph naming the parties and the title. Nothing about the memorandum’s articles is quoted anywhere on this page, because nothing about them can be verified, and that includes whether it contains any non-refoulement clause at all.

What happens on arrival

People land at Silvio Pettirossi International Airport in Asunción. In April 2026 the Foreign Minister and the migration directorate met the flight at the airport. By August 2026 the migration director stated that arrivals are placed in the care of the International Organization for Migration.

They are taken to a hotel in central Asunción. The stay was described at the outset as up to 72 hours before transfer to final destinations, with costs met by the United States and the migration organisation. By August the same official was describing earlier cohorts as having stayed five to fifteen days. Their immigration status during that period is a transitory stay condition.

No source describes detention. The Coalition has looked and found none, in either direction, and it states the negative in the form the evidence supports: on the available evidence, people transferred to Paraguay are not detained. That is a finding, and it belongs on the page as prominently as anything adverse.

Where people go next

This is the central finding for Paraguay and it comes from the governments themselves, not from advocates.

Paraguay’s migration director said in August 2026 that the earlier arrivals returned to their countries after between five and fifteen days in Paraguay, and that those then in the country were under the migration organisation’s care during a temporary stay before return to their home countries. Paraguay’s own framing from the beginning was a transitory stay and then transfer to final destinations. And Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry, reporting on the other end of the same pipeline, confirmed in September 2026 that 36 of the 48 Ecuadorians sent to third countries, 35 of whom went to Paraguay, are already back in Ecuador.

Stated carefully: people removed from the United States to Paraguay are in the main not remaining in Paraguay. They are held in transitory status for a period of days and then returned to their countries of origin, with an international organisation handling them and the United States paying.

Whether each of those returns was voluntary is not established, and the Coalition will not assume it either way. The one piece of evidence bearing on consent runs the wrong direction: Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry stated that at the time of transfer the people concerned had not expressed willingness to return to Ecuador. Most of them subsequently did return to Ecuador. What happened in between is not on any public record.

The honest characterisation, and the Coalition puts it in these words rather than in the language of unsafe countries: on the documented evidence Paraguay is operating less as a country of protection than as a short stay waypoint on a route home.

The asylum system a person is placed into, and does not use

Paraguay’s asylum law is, on paper, one of the more accessible in the region. On the refugee agency’s published description, an application may be made verbally or in writing; it may be lodged at a border or at an airport before the migration authority at the moment of entering the country, or at the commission’s executive secretariat in Asunción, or at the nearest migration office. It is free. It is personal, and requires no intermediary. The authority is the National Commission for Refugees and Stateless Persons, under a refugee statute of 2002 as amended. There is no statutory deadline for a decision.

So a person put off a plane at Silvio Pettirossi can, in law, claim asylum at the airport, out loud, in the terminal, at no cost, without a lawyer.

As of late July 2026, not one of the 77 had done so.

The Coalition does not know why, and says so. It records two facts that bear on the question. The first is that the choice officials describe having offered was between processing legal residency in Paraguay and returning to the country of origin, which is a real choice but not that one. The second is that no source addresses interpretation for non-Spanish speakers at any stage, and no source records that anyone was ever told the asylum route existed.

The system itself is small. The refugee agency’s Venezuela specific figures for Paraguay, as at December 2024, record 4,938 refugees and 800 asylum seekers, with 377 people assisted during 2025. An earlier agency sheet put total refugees, asylum seekers and others of concern at some 7,463. Those are not the whole caseload and are not presented here as though they were, but on any reading this is a system of the order of one tenth the size of Ecuador’s.

The country a person arrives in

Thin, and the Coalition says thin rather than padding it.

No named body has published any finding about people transferred to Paraguay from the United States. Not the Committee against Torture, not the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, not the Inter-American Commission, not the refugee agency, not Human Rights Watch, not Amnesty International, not Paraguay’s Ombudsman, not its preventive mechanism. That absence is itself the finding.

The most recent treaty body engagement on conditions is the review of July 2017. What follows are statements made by Committee members and replies by the state delegation during that dialogue. They are allegations and questions, not findings of the Committee, and they are eight years older than the memorandum.

On refoulement, and this is the single most relevant line in the Paraguayan record, a Committee expert said there were reports of asylum seekers being deported to their country of origin despite a legitimate risk of torture, and that the government needed to regularise the admission of refugees and asylum seekers and adopt adequate protection measures for them. On detention, overcrowding was put at 179 per cent on independent sources, with inadequate provision of food, medicines and hygiene, and 166 deaths between 2013 and 2016. On the preventive mechanism, it was said not to have been as effective as hoped, with a low level of compliance with international standards and serious budgetary constraints since 2013 including a 25 per cent drop in resources.

The concluding observations from that cycle are dated 5 September 2017. The memorandum was signed 14 August 2025, almost exactly eight years later. A list of issues for the eighth review exists, which means that review is pending and has not reported. The Committee against Torture has never examined this arrangement, and its most recent published assessment of Paraguay predates it by eight years.

What routes exist

Paraguay has accepted the individual complaint procedure under the Convention against Torture. It ratified the Convention on 12 March 1990 and has made the declarations under both article 21 and article 22. A person in Paraguay can petition the Committee against Torture directly, once domestic remedies are exhausted.

It ratified the Optional Protocol on 2 December 2005 and its national mechanism for the prevention of torture is created by its own statute of 2011 as a body autonomous of the Ombudsman, with its own institutional identity. That autonomy is a real structural strength and is the likely origin of the mechanism’s regional reputation. The Coalition draws a distinction it thinks the record requires: the mechanism’s legal design is strong; its demonstrated effectiveness is a separate question, and the last international body to examine it described it as underperforming and underfunded. The Coalition could not open the mechanism’s website at all and therefore publishes no contact details for it.

Paraguay recognised the contentious jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights by decree of 8 January 1993, with the declaration recorded as indefinite, subject to reciprocity, and applying only to events occurring after that act. The date of deposit with the regional organisation is not printed in the source the Coalition used and is unverified. The Ombudsman holds A status from the global alliance of national human rights institutions, reviewed in 2024.

The first days

Nothing below is advice, and no page can tell a particular person what to do in their case.

Who is reachable in Paraguay

Every entry below was checked on 11 September 2026 against the source named in it. The assessment is bleak and the Coalition states it before the list. There is no office of the United Nations refugee agency in Paraguay. The only organisation with a specific legal assistance mandate for refugees and asylum seekers is Semillas para la Democracia, and its email address could not be verified. The national human rights coalition’s own 2024 directory of member organisations contains no organisation identifying migrants or refugees as its focus. The preventive mechanism could not be contacted at all. For a person who does not speak Spanish, put off a plane at Asunción, the practically reachable routes amount to about three messaging numbers.

What runs the other way

More than on most pages in this section, and the Coalition sets it out at length because the evidence requires it.

Nobody is being detained. On all available evidence arrivals are housed in a hotel under transitory stay status. Paraguay compares well with other receiving states on the single question that matters most on arrival.

The Foreign Minister met the first flight personally. That level of official engagement and visibility is absent everywhere else in this section.

Paraguay screened people out. Of an intended 25 in April 2026, nine were refused for not meeting entry requirements, and officials recorded that those admitted had no prior judicial records. Paraguay exercised a limit rather than accepting the manifest as presented.

The arrangement is capped. The head of the refugee commission said Paraguay would receive up to 25 people a month initially, and the migration director described the same ceiling.

Paraguay says it is getting nothing for it. The Foreign Minister characterised the agreement as part of a strategic relationship with the United States covering security, commerce and technology, with no direct economic benefit to Paraguay. That cuts against a payment for people framing.

A choice was offered. Arrivals could choose between processing legal residency in Paraguay and returning to their country of origin. The Coalition notes again that this is residency, not asylum, but a choice was put and at least one of the options was to stay.

Asylum is legally accessible at the airport, verbally or in writing, free, with no intermediary required. The legal framework is not the obstacle here, and that is unusual.

Paraguay does grant protection. Small but real, under a statute dating to 2002 and through a functioning commission.

An independent preventive mechanism exists in law, autonomous of the Ombudsman, and the Ombudsman holds A status reviewed as recently as 2024.

What is not established

What the memorandum says. Its text is page images. Nothing about its articles, including any non-refoulement clause, can be quoted.

Whether the returns to countries of origin after five to fifteen days were voluntary. This is the largest gap on the page.

Whether any transferred person was ever told they could claim asylum, or in what language. No source addresses interpretation at any stage.

Whether the August 2025 group of 14 existed, or whether the April 2026 flight was the first. The monitoring project records the earlier group; the press described the later flight as the first. Unresolved, and published as unresolved.

The exact date of the April 2026 flight, given variously as 22 and 23 April. Possibly departure against arrival.

Any finding by any named international body about people transferred to Paraguay. None exists.

The Coalition writes Investigating rather than none found, because the second phrase reads as though a question has been answered when it has only been asked.

What this page does not yet carry

Any quotation from the Committee against Torture’s 2017 concluding observations on Paraguay. The document exists and is numbered; every route the Coalition tried to its full text was refused. What is quoted above comes from the summary of the dialogue, which is a weaker document, and the page says so rather than passing it off as the observations.

The United States Secretary of State’s press statement in its authentic form. Both the department’s own site and the embassy mirror refused every request, so the phrases attributed to it are reproduced at second hand from a policy tracker and should be checked against the original.

Any contact details for the national mechanism for the prevention of torture, and a verified email address for Semillas para la Democracia.

A single account from any of the 77 people, in their own words, of what they were told and what they chose.

If you can correct anything on this page, the Coalition wants to hear it.

Sources

Every source relied on above, linked so it can be read in full rather than through this summary.

The instrument. Memorandum of understanding between the United States Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State and the Paraguayan National Commission for Stateless Persons and Refugees, for cooperation in the examination of protection requests, signed 14 August 2025, at 90 Federal Register 60114, published 23 December 2025, the text carried as images; official print at govinfo. American Immigration Council, third country removals in United States immigration policy, December 2025, page 3, for the list of announced agreements. Mixed Migration Centre, bilateral migration deals, which records that complete information on the deal is not available.

Numbers and the officials’ accounts. Third Country Deportation Watch, Paraguay page, last updated 24 August 2026, for the five flights, the total of 77 and the finding that nobody had accessed the asylum system. Primicias with EFE, 24 August 2026, for the August flight and the migration director on care by the migration organisation and on returns after five to fifteen days. La Nación, 23 April 2026, for the April flight, the hotel, the 72 hours, the nine refusals, the choice offered, the monthly cap and the Foreign Minister’s account of what Paraguay receives in return.

Ecuadorians sent to Paraguay. Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry, reported 8 September 2026, for the 48 nationals, the 35 sent to Paraguay, the statement that they had not expressed willingness to return, and the 36 returns.

The asylum system. UNHCR Help Paraguay, on applying verbally or in writing at a border or airport, the absence of a decision deadline, and the commission’s role. Ley N° 1938/02 general on refugees, at the congressional library. Refugee agency statistical fact sheet on the Venezuelan population in Paraguay, data as at December 2024.

Country conditions. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, summary of the Committee against Torture’s review of Paraguay, 27 July 2017, from which every statement identified above as an allegation or a question is taken. Concluding observations CAT/C/PRY/CO/7, 5 September 2017, record page, full text unreachable. List of issues prior to reporting for the eighth cycle, CAT/C/PRY/QPR/8, indicating the review is pending.

Treaty status, from the depositary and the regional system. United Nations Treaty Collection, chapters IV-9 and IV-9-b. Ley N° 4288/2011 creating the preventive mechanism, at the congressional library. Organization of American States ratification table for the American Convention, for the decree of 8 January 1993 and its terms. Inter-American Court of Human Rights, states accepting contentious jurisdiction. Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions, accreditation status chart, December 2025.

Pending proceedings. Litigation in the United States challenging the use of these agreements is before the federal district court in Washington. Plaintiffs moved in December 2025 to bring the newer instruments, including those with Paraguay and Ecuador, within the case; the motion was opposed, replies were filed in late January 2026, and no ruling has issued. Docketed as U.T. v. Bondi, now U.T. v. Blanche, No. 1:20-cv-00116.

Compiled 11 September 2026. Where this page summarises a decision or a report, the full document is linked above and should be read in preference to this summary. Where a document could not be opened, this page says so rather than quoting it at second hand as though it had been read. Three claims were removed before publication: a figure of 38 or more people transferred, which is out of date by half; apparent content of the memorandum produced by an automated read of a document with no text layer; and a statement that Paraguay had not accepted individual complaints under the Convention against Torture, which is false. It has. No person transferred under this arrangement is named on this page. Corrections to the Coalition.