News & Reports
Reports and analysis on torture and refoulement from every region, with the source for each statement.
The Legal Obligations That Continue After Deportation
Part 7 of 7. When the United States removes a person it was bound to protect, the law does not simply lose sight of him. Federal courts have ordered the government to bring back people it sent abroad without the process the law requires, and the government accepts that a person who wins a petition for review after removal can have his return facilitated. What those orders require, where their limits lie, and what the Supreme Court’s review of removal to third countries, and of the risk of onward refoulement, may decide.
Removal to a Third Country: What Nasrallah v. Barr Permits, and What It Does Not
Part 2 of 7. How a lawful alternative to removal into torture became the center of a dispute over diplomatic assurances, notice, and the risk of onward refoulement.
Out of Public View: The Detainee Locator Policy and Access to Counsel
Part 3 of 7. Since mid-September 2026, according to the Associated Press and the court filings that followed, people held by ICE whose orders of removal are final no longer appear in the agency’s public locator. Some of them hold protection against torture or persecution, and the remedies that protect them begin with knowing where they are held.
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.
The Rules Say the Country Must Be Named. Two Courts Said So in 1998 and 1999.
Two provisions of the removal regulations require the immigration judge to identify the alternative countries on the record, and to tell a person who fears one of them that he may apply for protection against being sent there. Courts of appeals said the same in 1998 and 1999. In O.C.G.'s hearing no alternative country was identified, and when he raised Mexico himself he was told it could not happen.
A Man With Protection From Guatemala Was Put on a Bus to Mexico. Mexico Sent Him Back to Guatemala.
An immigration judge found he would more likely than not suffer serious harm in Guatemala. Two days later he was removed to Mexico without notice, and Mexico sent him to Guatemala. A federal judge ordered the government to bring him back, and the court has since recorded that the government did.
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.