The United States has sent five men to the small African nation of Eswatini in an expansion of the Trump administration’s largely secretive third-country deportation program.
The United States has sent five men to the small African nation of Eswatini in an expansion of the Trump administration’s largely secretive third-country deportation program, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.
The U.S. has already deported eight men to another African nation, South Sudan, after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on sending people to countries where they have no ties. The South Sudanese government has declined to say where those men are after they arrived nearly two weeks ago.
In a late-night post on X, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the men sent to Eswatini, who are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos, had arrived on a plane, but didn’t say when or where.
She said they were all convicted criminals and “individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.”
The men “have been terrorizing American communities” but were now “off of American soil,” McLaughlin added.
McLaughlin said they had been convicted of crimes including murder and child rape and one was a “confirmed” gang member.
Like in South Sudan, there was no immediate comment from Eswatini authorities over any deal to accept third-country deportees or what would happen to them in that country. Civic groups there raised concerns over the secrecy from a government long accused of clamping down on human rights.
“There has been a notable lack of official communication from the Eswatini government regarding any agreement or understanding with the U.
