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.
Iranian Nationals and the Risk of Return to Torture
Part 6 of 7. Since September 2025 the United States has returned more than a hundred Iranians to Iran, and it has sent others, among them people its own judges protected against return there, to the Central African Republic. In October its lawyers told a federal court that further removals to Iran were planned, by way of a third country. What the record shows, what the law requires of each route, and why the confidentiality of a protection claim is part of the protection itself.
The Country That Was Supposed to Be Safe Sent Them Back
Part 4 of 7. Ghana offered West Africans deported from the United States a safe haven. People protected by American immigration judges say it sent them to the very countries those judges had ruled out. What the record shows, how the government answers it, and when a third-country removal becomes refoulement by another route.
Payments to Other Governments, and the Safeguards That Should Come With Them
Part 5 of 7. The United States has committed tens of millions of dollars to foreign governments that agree to accept people it removes. Some of the promises to protect the people sent are written in memoranda that disclaim legal effect; others are one-sided assurances; most are made by governments already bound by the Convention Against Torture. What the public record does not show is any regular means of checking that the promises are kept.
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.
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.
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.
Twenty Were Flown to Liberia on 20 August. Five Were Put Back on the Plane.
Roughly twenty people landed at Monrovia on 20 August. Five refused to leave the aircraft and, Reuters reported, were taken on to Equatorial Guinea. Most of the fifteen who remained had already won an order from an American court forbidding their return to their own countries.
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.