Trump's third-country deportations of LGBT migrants are pushing dozens of people into countries where being gay can mean life in prison. A Reuters investigation published on October 5, 2026 documented 40 cases of migrants who were granted legal protection in the United States after being persecuted for their LGBT status — and were then deported by the Trump administration to third African countries that either criminalize same-sex relations or are described by the US State Department as hostile to LGBT people.
Abdou Latifou's Story
Abdou Latifou fled Togo after a mob assaulted him about two years ago for kissing the man he loved, according to his asylum application. Last November a US immigration judge ruled it unsafe to send him home — a lesser protection that barred deportation to Togo but allowed removal elsewhere.
In June 2026 he was forced onto a US deportation plane — not to Togo but to Sierra Leone, where gay men face life in prison under colonial-era laws. After two weeks held in a Sierra Leone hotel under police surveillance, guards put him on a flight back to Togo. He arrived with a few clothes and $100, was warned by a relative he was unsafe, and crossed into Benin and on to Ivory Coast, where he now lives with a friend and works as a security guard.
Dozens More Across Africa
Reuters tracked all 40 deportees — from across Africa plus Iraq, Jamaica, and Russia — through a dozen interviews and hundreds of pages of legal documents. Sixteen remain in the countries they were deported to, some still detained. Sixteen were repatriated home against their will. Nine are hiding in third locations. One Ghanaian man is no longer in contact with his lawyers or relatives.
The other cases include a bisexual Ghanaian woman deported to Cameroon in January, now sheltering in northern Nigeria; a gay Ghanaian man deported to Sierra Leone and forcibly repatriated, who spent four months hiding in Togo forests; and a 44-year-old Mauritanian, a US resident for over a decade, flown to Eswatini — a country he had never heard of — jailed six weeks in a mosquito-infested prison, then flown back to Mauritania before slipping into Senegal.
The hostile-terrain countries include Sierra Leone, Cameroon, and Eswatini, which criminalize same-sex acts, and the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the State Department has documented "corrective rape" and conversion therapy. None of the six governments responded to comment requests.
40,000 Third-Country Deportations
The 40 are part of a much larger program: preliminary government data shows over 40,000 people deported to non-native countries by ICE and the Border Patrol since Trump returned to office, about 900 of them to African countries — a practice rare before his second term — enabled by deals with impoverished foreign governments.
In February 2026, US District Judge Brian Murphy called the government's claim that deportees had not objected to repressive third countries an "absurdity." But on September 29, the Supreme Court put a hold on his ruling, letting deportations continue pending appeal; arguments are set for December.
Sending people "to a third country where they face the very persecution we recognized makes a mockery of our protection systems." — Claire Trickler-McNulty, former senior US immigration official
The administration defends the program. DHS spokesman Chandler Rebel said "ICE does not enforce the law on the basis of sexual orientation," calling "third country removals" an "essential public safety tool" — and adding that once deported, "ICE will no longer be responsible for them."
Takeaway
Over half of the 40 were barred from full asylum by Biden-era transit-country rules — vacated by a federal court in May 2026. Immigration Equality says it helped 12 Cameroonians and one Congolese win US asylum in recent years. For the 40 in this investigation, American protection came first — deportation to danger came second.
Watch: WION's report on how the US expanded its third-country deportation program across Africa
Music: Kevin MacLeod - Hitman (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 3.0
Sources:
Reuters — Trump's deportation push forces dozens of LGBT migrants onto hostile terrain
Reuters — Supreme Court lets Trump resume third-country deportations
Reuters — Equatorial Guinea police pull guns on migrants deported by Trump