Africa as America's Waiting Room: HRW Says Third-Country Deportations Break International Law

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the United States of violating international law through its policy of deporting migrants to African countries that are not their own. The accusation comes as another African state, Burundi, has become the latest to agree to take US deportees.

What the report says
According to HRW's new report, as summarised by DW Africa, more than 500 migrants have been transferred from the US to African countries other than their countries of origin since the policy was expanded under the Trump administration.

Migrants interviewed described long flights in shackles, without being told where they were going. HRW also raised concern that some deportees, including LGBTQ individuals, have been sent to countries where they could face discrimination or criminal penalties. In HRW's view, the programme is designed to deter migration by spreading fear and uncertainty.

A widening circle of host countries
Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini and South Sudan have all received US deportees under deals that have been criticised as opaque. Burundi is the latest to join them.

The pattern did not begin with this report. In September 2025, HRW said expulsions to Eswatini, Ghana, Rwanda and South Sudan had exposed several hundred people to arbitrary detention, ill-treatment and refoulement, the forced return of a person to a place where they face persecution or torture.

HRW viewed the written agreement with Eswatini, under which the US would provide $5.1 million for border and migration management in return for up to 160 deportees. It urged African governments to refuse such deals and to end existing ones.

Investigators say the network is broad.
A consortium led by Forbidden Stories found dozens of third-country agreements worldwide, at least 12 of them in Africa. HRW legal adviser Mike Bochenek argues the arrangement lets Washington distance itself from what happens next and sidestep its obligation not to send people to places where they face danger.

Why this matters to Ghana and West Africa

Ghana has already been part of this story. NBC reported on a woman deported from Maryland who said she was flown to Ghana in shackles, though she had no ties to the country, and the UN human rights office has called on Ghana to stop accepting such deportees. For a country that prides itself on democratic standing and on pan-African solidarity, that is an uncomfortable record.

The deeper question is sovereignty and consent. African governments are signing agreements that parliaments and citizens rarely see, and the money offered, though modest by US standards, can matter to small economies. If these deals are lawful and humane, there should be no objection to publishing them. Secrecy suggests the opposite.

What to watch
First, whether the African Union and regional bodies take a common position, as the African Commission's special rapporteur on refugees has already said these agreements cannot override human rights obligations. Second, whether courts, in the US or in host countries, rule on the legality of the transfers. Third, whether Burundi's agreement is published.

Mustapha Bature Sallama
Medical/ Science Communicator,
Private Investigator, Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Analysis,

International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding. (USIP)

Mustysallama@gmail.com
+233555275880

Sources
Human Rights Watch, "US/Africa: Expulsion Deals Flout Rights," September 23, 2025

Human Rights Watch, "Abuses in Cameroon After US Deports Third-Country Nationals"

ModernGhana, "Inside the US system deporting migrants through third countries" (Forbidden Stories' Deportation Project)

AFP via Malay Mail, "How US is using cash and threats to dump migrants in Africa," July 2026

NBC Washington, "Woman deported from Maryland shown on video being dragged in Ghana"

DW Africa summary of HRW's new report (text you supplied)

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