UN Experts Urge US to Halt Third-Country Deportations

More than a dozen United Nations human rights experts have written to the United States government urging it to halt third-country deportations, the practice of sending migrants to countries other than their own. According to Reuters, the letter says the policy puts people at heightened risk of torture and persecution, and calls on Washington to end the arrangements immediately.

The Trump administration has struck multiple agreements with African governments since last year to accept migrants it cannot legally return to their home countries. Many of the people caught in third-country deportations had previously won protection from American judges, who ruled they could face abuse if they were sent back.

That mismatch sits at the center of the experts' complaint. Courts in the United States found that some of these migrants needed protection from the very harm repatriation would bring, and then the deportation system moved them to a third country anyway. The letter treats third-country deportations as a workaround for judicial orders rather than a separate lawful process.

Twenty-three thousand sent to twenty-nine nations

The experts say at least twenty-three thousand third-country nationals have already been sent to twenty-nine nations and territories under the deals. The figure shows a deportation system operating at national scale, with thousands of people already moved.

The letter warns that the damage from third-country deportations is no longer a forecast. The communication states that the harms caused by the government's scheme are no longer hypothetical, and describes a cascade of human rights violations flowing from the policy.

Where the danger falls

The experts point to specific destination countries to make their case. In Equatorial Guinea, police pulled firearms on migrants moved there through third-country deportations, according to rights groups cited by Reuters. The Central African Republic is now receiving Iranian deportees, a population whose safety in a conflict-affected state raises obvious concerns.

The letter names the groups it says face the greatest danger. At gravest risk are children, women, persons with disabilities, victims of trafficking, LGBT persons, human rights defenders, stateless persons, and other people in extremely vulnerable situations. The statement stops short of documenting individual cases, but the categories describe people with the least ability to protect themselves in an unfamiliar country.

The warning lands in a week when those same groups are under pressure elsewhere. GenZ NewZ reported on Turkiye's raids targeting LGBTI communities under the banner of family protection, a separate story that underscores how thin safety margins have become for the people the UN experts list as most at risk.

Washington's answer

The United States diplomatic mission to the United Nations in Geneva did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter. Washington has previously defended the third-country deals as lawful, saying deportations are carried out in accordance with American immigration law.

The policy is also facing a court fight at home. President Trump asked the Supreme Court this month to allow his administration to continue the practice after lower courts ruled it unlawful. The legal clash over third-country deportations is part of a wider pattern of courtroom battles over the administration's moves; Congress recently pushed back over a taxpayer-funded ad that drew legal fire from lawmakers.

Pressure beyond Washington

The experts did not send the communication only to Washington. They also wrote to the governments of thirty-five countries and territories that they say entered into agreements with the United States to receive people through third-country deportations, putting the receiving states on notice as well.

The signatories are independent experts commissioned by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council to monitor and document specific human rights crises. They are independent of the organization itself, which gives the letter the weight of outside scrutiny rather than an internal UN position.

What comes next is now in two places at once: the administration's bid to keep the program alive before the Supreme Court, and the question of whether any government on the receiving end reconsiders its agreement. Until either moves, third-country deportations continue, and the number of people already sent stands as the baseline the experts are asking the world to reckon with.