US deportees in Sierra Leone fear forced return despite court protections

Summary

Asylum seekers deported by the United States to Sierra Leone risk being sent back to their home countries, where they could face persecution, according to one of their lawyers and documents seen by The Associated Press. This is despite earlier US court orders that barred their deportation to those countries. About a dozen people deported from the US arrived in Sierra Leone on Thursday, according to Erica Reilly, a lawyer representing one of the migrants. It was the second deportation flight to the West African country after nine West African migrants landed there last month. Sierra Leone is among at least nine African countries that have entered into third-country deportation deals with the US, while several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have also reached similar agreements. A briefing pamphlet that lawyers said was given to the migrants after they arrived in Freetown said the government and contractors were working to “return you home as quickly and safely as possible”. The pamphlet, seen by AP, was distributed by Kenvah Solutions, a private contractor that the Sierra Leone government said it had hired to manage the deportees’ accommodation, food, healthcare and transfer. Advocates say that under a series of often secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to nearly two dozen countries that are not their own as part of a wider immigration crackdown. Immigration lawyers said the administration was using third-country deportations as a legal loophole to indirectly send asylum seekers back to their home countries. Reilly, who represents a Nigerian man among those deported on Thursday, said the migrants had legal protection from US courts against deportation to their home countries after judges found they had credible fears of persecution. “They’re put in a position where they just don’t have a say at all,” Reilly said.