{"id":72082,"date":"2025-07-18T07:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T07:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/72082\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T07:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T07:47:08","slug":"us-deports-5-immigrants-to-eswatini-in-africa-to-be-held-in-solitary-confinement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/72082\/","title":{"rendered":"US deports 5 immigrants to Eswatini in Africa to be held in solitary confinement"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) \u2014 Five immigrants deported by the United States to the small southern African nation of Eswatini<\/a> under the Trump administration\u2019s third-country program<\/a> are in prison, where they will be held in solitary confinement for an undetermined time, a government spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

Thabile Mdluli, the spokesperson, declined to identify the correctional facility or facilities where the five men are, citing security concerns. She said Eswatini planned to ultimately repatriate<\/a> the five to their home countries with the help of a United Nations agency.<\/p>\n

In cell phone messages to The Associated Press on Thursday, Mdluli said it wasn\u2019t clear how long that would take.<\/p>\n

The men, who the U.S. says were convicted of serious crimes and were in the U.S. illegally, are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos. Their convictions included murder and child rape, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security<\/a> said, describing them as \u201cuniquely barbaric.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their deportations were announced by Homeland Security on Tuesday and mark the continuation of President Donald Trump\u2019s plan<\/a> to send deportees to third countries they have no ties with after it was stalled by a legal challenge in the United States.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what we know and don\u2019t know about the deportations:<\/p>\n

A new country for deportees<\/p>\n

Eswatini, a country of 1.2 million people bordering South Africa, is the latest nation to accept third-country deportees from the U.S. The Trump administration has sent hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama, and deported eight men earlier this month to South Sudan, also an African country<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The deportees to South Sudan are citizens of Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan. They were held for weeks in a converted shipping container at a U.S. military base in the nearby country of Djibouti until a Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for them to be finally sent to South Sudan. The U.S. also described them as violent criminals.<\/p>\n

Eswatini\u2019s government confirmed on Wednesday that the latest five deportees were in its custody after landing on a deportation plane from the U.S. <\/p>\n

Local media reported they are being held at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, outside the country\u2019s administrative capital of Mbabane, which includes Eswatini\u2019s top maximum-security prison.<\/p>\n

The men\u2019s fate is unclear<\/p>\n

The Eswatini government said the men are \u201cin transit\u201d and will eventually be sent to their home countries. The U.S. and Eswatini governments would work with the U.N. migration agency to do that, it said.<\/p>\n

The U.N. agency \u2014 the International Organization for Migration or IOM \u2014 said it was not involved in the operation and has not been approached to assist in the matter but would be willing to help \u201cin line with its humanitarian mandate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eswatini\u2019s statement that the men would be sent home was in contrast to U.S. claims they were sent to Eswatini because their home countries refused to take them back. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear how sending the men to Eswatini would make it easier for them to be deported home. There was also no timeframe for that as it depends on several factors, including engagements with the IOM, Mdluli said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not yet in a position to determine the timelines for the repatriation,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

Four of the five countries where the men are from have historically resisted taking back some of their citizens deported from the U.S., which has been a reoccurring problem for Homeland Security. Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the administration was happy the men were \u201coff of American soil\u201d when she announced their deportations.<\/p>\n

Another secretive deal<\/p>\n

There have been no details on why Eswatini agreed to take the men and Mdluli, the government spokesperson, said \u201cthe terms of the agreement between the U.S. and Eswatini remain classified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eswatini has said it was the result of months of negotiations between the two governments. South Sudan has also given no details of its agreement with the U.S. to take deportees and has declined to say where the eight men sent there are being held.<\/p>\n

Some analysts say African nations might be willing to take deportees from the U.S. in return for more favorable relations with the Trump administration, which has cut foreign aid to poor countries and threatened them with trade tariffs. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration has also said it\u2019s seeking more deportation deals<\/a> with other countries. <\/p>\n

Rights groups have questioned the countries the U.S. has chosen to deal with, as South Sudan and Eswatini have both been criticized for having repressive governments. <\/p>\n

Eswatini is Africa\u2019s only absolute monarchy<\/a>, meaning the king has power over government and rules by decree. Political parties are banned and pro-democracy protests have been quelled violently in the past.<\/p>\n

Several rights groups have criticized Eswatini since pro-democracy protests erupted there in 2021<\/a>, citing deadly crackdowns by security forces and abusive conditions in prisons, including at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, where pro-democracy activists are held.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Mogomotsi Magome and Michelle Gumede in Johannesburg contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) \u2014 Five immigrants deported by the United States to the small southern African…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":72083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7779,1578,7837,69,47510,57,409,50,80,2938,2241,369,10425,3676,1206,67,370,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-72082","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-associated-press","10":"tag-democracy","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-eswatini","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-immigration","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-prisons","18":"tag-south-africa","19":"tag-supreme-court-of-the-united-states","20":"tag-tricia-mclaughlin","21":"tag-u-s-department-of-homeland-security","22":"tag-united-nations","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-government","25":"tag-world","26":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114873135547751093","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}