More than half of Latin Americans deported from US to Congo are now back home
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — More than half 15 Latin Americans deported to Congo in April Congo is returning to their country of origin amid the Trump administration’s widely criticized crackdown on immigrants, the government and one of its lawyers said Friday.
U.S. immigration judges ruled that they were likely to face persecution in their home countries.
Congo is one of at least eight African countries with which the United States has deportation agreements with third countries.
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 theirs. Immigration lawyers said: management It uses deportation to third countries as a legal loophole to indirectly force asylum seekers to return to their home countries.
Alma David, a US-based lawyer who represents one of the 15 immigrants, said the eight deported people had returned to their home countries in recent weeks.
His client, a Colombian woman He described his conditions and uncertainty in Congo in an interview with The Associated PressHe said he is currently staying in the Central African country.
Also, her Colombian friend Adriana Maria Quiroz Zapata is still in Congo. federal judge last month ordered the Trump administration to bring him back to the US. He was deported to Congo even though they refused to accept him because he could not meet his medical needs.
David said four Peruvians and three Colombians returned home earlier this week with help from the International Organization for Migration, a U.N. agency.
They returned through IOM’s Assisted Voluntary Repatriation program, under which it covers travel costs and logistics for migrants who agree to return to their home countries as an alternative to forced deportation.
The lawyer said the immigrants were given protection by U.S. federal courts from being deported to their home countries and ruled they were likely to face persecution if they were returned.
“The fact that they have already chosen to return there raises serious concerns that they are likely to feel cornered because they have not been presented with a viable alternative,” David said.
The IOM said assisted voluntary returns were “strictly voluntary and based on free, prior and informed consent.”
David said a Colombian man recently returned to his home country.
“These developments confirm the strictly provisional, provisional and time-limited nature of this mechanism, as announced since its launch,” the Congolese government said in a statement. he said. “Further departures will occur shortly as part of the implementation of the agreement.”
The announcement comes on the same day as the rights lawyers He filed a lawsuit against Equatorial Guinea before Africa’s highest human rights body, He accuses the Central African country of violating their rights and sending those deported from the United States back to their home countries.
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Associated Press writer Saleh Mwanamilongo in Bonn, Germany, contributed to this report.
