Ten people deported by the US have arrived in Eswatini, its government said, the second group of third-country deportees to be sent to the southern African kingdom by the Trump administration in what lawyers and NGOs have described as violations of their human rights.
A statement by the Eswatini government posted on social media before their arrival on Monday said: “The individuals will be kept in a secured area separate from the public, while arrangements are made for their return to their countries of origin.”
It added that it would work with the International Organization for Migration on the returns. The statement did not specify where the deportees were originally from or the reasons given by the US for deporting them.
“This group includes three Vietnamese, one Filipino, one Cambodian and four [to] six others,” said Tin Thanh Nguyen, a US lawyer for two of the Vietnamese nationals. Nguyen is also the lawyer for another Vietnamese national and a Laotian national who were deported to Eswatini in July.
Eswatini’s correctional services department said in a statement on Monday: “The nationals who arrived today are in good health and undergoing admission processes … HMCS [His Majesty’s Correctional Services] remains committed to the humane treatment of all persons in its custody.”
Donald Trump’s administration is attempting to ramp up deportations from the US. This has included striking deals with third countries including El Salvador, Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan to remove dozens of people who have no connections to where they are being sent and are not given any opportunity to challenge their removals.
At least eight west African men were deported to their home countries via Ghana in September, despite fearing they would be subject to “torture, persecution or inhumane treatment”.
Five men from Cambodia, Cuba, Jamaica, Vietnam and Yemen were deported in July by the US to Eswatini, a country of 1.2 million people landlocked by South Africa and Mozambique, where they were put in a maximum security prison.
Orville Etoria, who served 24 years for murder in the US before being released there in 2021, was returned to Jamaica on 21 September. The US had claimed that the five men were so “uniquely barbaric” that their home countries would not take them back, something that Jamaica’s government denied in the case of Etoria.
Eswatini’s government, which is appointed by Africa’s last absolute monarch, King Mswati III, said two of the other five men were expected to be repatriated soon.
A group of Eswatini NGOs has challenged the deportation deal. The case has been delayed twice – once when the attorney general did not come to court and again when the judge failed to turn up. The hearing is due on Tuesday 7 October.
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Human Rights Watch said it had viewed the text of the deportation deal, which has not been made public. The NGO said Eswatini agreed to take 160 deportees from the US as part of the $5.1m (£3.8m) agreement.
US lawyers for the men have said they have been denied the opportunity to have private calls with their clients. On 3 October, Eswatini’s high court granted a local lawyer access to the men. The judgment was stayed, as the government immediately appealed to the supreme court, arguing that “the respondent failed to establish a legally recognised connection with the foreign nationals”.
Nguyen said his two clients who had been deported in the summer had been held in Eswatini without charge. “Neither Vietnam nor Laos has refused their repatriation, yet they remain imprisoned in a third country … Even if my clients are successfully repatriated tomorrow, these third-country deportations remain illegal and must be stopped before hundred more people are unjustly subjected to this system,” the lawyer added.
The US Department of Homeland Security and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
