Two dozen UN human rights experts have warned that Donald Trump’s scheme of deporting asylum seekers to third countries violates human rights, setting off a “cascade of human rights violations” that could have “deadly” consequences. The warning comes as the US government has offered millions of dollars to 35 foreign nations since Trump returned to power in 2025 to accept refugees and asylum seekers with no ties to those countries.
About 20,000 migrants have been transported by bus to Mexico, according to Refugees International and Human Rights First. More than 5,000 others have been flown to countries in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and central Asia.
On Monday, 24 experts advising the UN Human Rights Council — supported by a special rapporteur for the African Commission — contacted the US and all 35 countries to express concern and demand an end to the policy. The experts said the harms caused by the scheme are no longer hypothetical. “The arrangements are triggering a cascade of human rights violations,” they wrote. “For migrants in situations of particular vulnerability, the consequences can be deadly.”
The Deportation Scheme
Trump’s administration has been pushing migrants through a series of deals with foreign governments. Instead of processing asylum claims in the US, the government offers cash to countries willing to take the migrants. Nearly a third of the deals are with African nations.
The arrangement works like this: migrants are loaded onto buses or planes and moved through one or more countries before reaching their final destination. Some arrive in places still engulfed in conflict, where people already struggle with displacement, starvation and poverty.
Risks Facing Deported Migrants
The experts listed a range of dangers faced by deported migrants. They include torture, ill-treatment, enforced disappearances, trafficking and slavery. Migrants often lack connections to the countries they’re sent to, making resettlement difficult and exposing them to further violence or discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or human rights advocacy.
The Trump administration says deportations target criminals. That is the stated purpose of the programme. But the experts see something broader at play.
Cases the Experts Cited
The experts pointed to specific cases to illustrate the risks. One involved an Iranian woman protesting the regime. Another involved a gay man hunted in Ghana after being outed by his family.
These are not hypothetical dangers, the experts argued. They are happening now.
The Buses to Mexico
The bus route to Mexico has become the most visible part of the scheme. About 20,000 migrants have been moved that way, according to Refugees International and Human Rights First.
The bus trips are a direct route from the US border to Mexican cities.
Flying Migrants Across Continents
The flights go further. More than 5,000 migrants have been flown to countries in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and central Asia. The destinations are far from the migrants’ original homes.
Some of these countries are not stable. Conflict zones mean the migrants arrive into situations of ongoing violence.
The Legal Loophole
Deportations often move people through third countries before returning them to home nations they fled. That sidesteps US law that bars sending people to countries where they’re likely to be persecuted.
The arrangement is a workaround, not a fix. It moves the problem from one jurisdiction to another, leaving the migrants with no legal protections in any of them.
Who Is Warning Whom
Beatrice Njeri of the Global Strategic Litigation Council, which represents people expelled from the US to third countries, called the experts’ statement the first comprehensive warning of its kind. Her group has represented migrants who have been sent back to countries where they face serious harm.
Njeri cited two men expelled to Equatorial Guinea who were bound, fitted with bags over their heads, beaten and pushed down a flight of stairs. Those details are specific, and they describe treatment that crosses any reasonable line.
The Silence From African Countries
Njeri said African states involved in the scheme have largely ignored pleas, litigation and advocacy to stop the arrangements. She described it as “screaming into a void.”
The silence is telling. When a government ignores repeated requests from the international community, it signals a willingness to continue regardless of the consequences.
A Warning to Europe
Njeri warned EU countries considering offshore migrant centres against following the US model. “European states now clearly know how African states are implementing the agreements, violating people’s rights and offering no redress. And so they have no excuse.”
The warning extends beyond the US. It applies to any country that treats migration as a problem to be exported rather than solved at home.
The Broader Stake
The experts framed the issue as more than a migration policy. They said it affects the lives, safety, dignity and rights of people who may already have endured grave harm and who, in many cases, are fleeing life-threatening persecution and violence in their home countries.
The scheme is not just about moving bodies. It is about denying people the chance to seek protection in a place where they can find it.
What Happens Next
The experts have spoken. Now they wait for a response from the US and the 35 countries involved.
The warning is on the record. The question is whether anyone will act on it.
| Deportation Route | Migrants Moved | Destination Type |
|---|---|---|
| Bus to Mexico | About 20,000 | — |
| Flights to Africa, Latin America, Caribbean, Central Asia | More than 5,000 | Third country |
| Sidestepping US law | All routes | Home countries migrants fled |
The experts have laid out the stakes. The migrants have paid the price.
The experts’ warning calls for an immediate halt to the policy.
Where the paper stands
The paper backs neither the experts nor the scheme itself, but it backs the principle that individuals should not be forced into exile without process, and it backs a government that can explain its actions openly rather than one that writes its own rules behind closed doors. The paper opposes any arrangement that sends people across borders without clear accountability, and it opposes any policy that treats migration as a problem to be exported rather than solved at home.
The scheme as described sends migrants through third countries to places where they have no connections, no protections, and no recourse if things go wrong. That is a concentration of power, and it is the kind of arrangement the paper’s position warns against — power that gathers in one place, an office or an administration, and writes its own authority.
The paper wants to see the US government answer directly to the 24 experts and the 35 countries named in their warning. It wants to see the money and the deals laid out openly, not hidden behind closed doors. And it wants to see the migrants treated as individuals whose rights matter, not as bodies to be moved across borders without process.
Source material: “Trump’s deportations to third countries violate human rights, UN experts warn,” The Guardian.
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