The second thing added to these removals is what the receiving state does with the person once the aircraft has gone. This is the half that the courts have ruled on.
South Sudan and Eswatini
In August 2025 a federal judge examined sworn declarations that men deported from the United States to South Sudan and to Eswatini had been imprisoned incommunicado since their arrival. In November 2025 a second judge described the same evidence and recorded that in Eswatini the men were held in solitary confinement. On that record he held that the government’s practice of third-country removal paired with imprisonment “is intended to be punitive” and violates due process.
Both country guides carry this material in full, with their own sources: Eswatini and South Sudan.
Ghana
The government told a federal court that Ghana had assured the United States it would not send the five people transferred there anywhere they were likely to be tortured. One of the five was returned to his home country almost immediately and is in hiding. At the hearing the government agreed that Ghana appears to be violating the assurance it gave, agreed that the practice “is not okay,” and said it could not prevent the return because the United States “does not have the power to tell Ghana what to do.”
The full account is on the Ghana country guide.
What one judge concluded about the pattern
“Defendants’ actions in this case appear to be taken in disregard of or despite its obligations to provide individuals present in the United States with due process and to treat even those who are subject to removal humanely. These actions also appear to be part of a pattern and widespread effort to evade the government’s legal obligations by doing indirectly what it cannot do directly.”
The same judge wrote that the case was “not an outlier,” and that she was “alarmed and dismayed by the circumstances under which these removals are being carried out.” She refused the relief sought, holding that she had no jurisdiction to grant it. Her closing words were that her hands were tied.
These are observations, not findings. The difference between the two, and why this site keeps them apart, is explained on the terminology page.
Sources for this page
Nguyen v. Scott, 796 F. Supp. 3d 703 (W.D. Wash. 21 August 2025); Abubaka v. Bondi, No. 2:25-cv-01889-RSL (W.D. Wash. 17 November 2025); D.A. v. Noem, No. 1:25-cv-03135-TSC (D.D.C. 15 September 2025). All in the register of court decisions.