Tag
The principle prohibiting states from returning individuals to countries where they face serious threats to life or freedom. A cornerstone of international refugee and human rights law, recognized as a norm of customary international law.
15 incidents
The US secretly deported 17 people from 9 African countries to Cameroon under a covert agreement. Deportees were immediately beaten by gendarmes, arbitrarily detained, and subjected to torture. Journalists attempting to document conditions were detained. HRW documented systematic abuses including enforced disappearances and rape.
A secret agreement with one of the world's most repressive regimes has stranded 29 deportees in Equatorial Guinea, where they face indefinite detention without counsel or forced deportation to the countries they fled. The $7.5 million deal is part of a broader $40 million third-country deportation program targeting migrants from countries that will not accept their return.
The US paid Rwanda, Ghana, Eswatini, and South Sudan to accept deportees who are not their nationals, in deals a federal judge ruled unconstitutional. HRW called the expulsion agreements violations of international human rights law, and domestic lawsuits in Ghana challenge the deal's legality.
Federal officials removed Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador despite a preexisting withholding order barring that destination, then spent weeks litigating what it meant to 'facilitate' his return after the Supreme Court intervened.
Over 260 Venezuelans were secretly deported to CECOT, where HRW documented torture, sexual violence, prolonged incommunicado detention, and denial of basic necessities. Many deportees had no criminal history and were asylum seekers.
Systematic forced disappearances of Salvadoran nationals deported from the US, held incommunicado in Salvadoran prisons including CECOT with no access to lawyers, families, or courts. The US bears responsibility for knowingly deporting individuals to a country practicing enforced disappearance — a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute.
The US deported Haitians to a country the FAA banned US airlines from landing in due to gang gunfire, where 90% of the capital is under gang control and 1.4 million are displaced. DHS terminated TPS for 348,000 Haitians while the State Department maintained a Level 4 'Do Not Travel' advisory.
TPS was terminated or targeted for termination across 11 countries, de-documenting over 1 million people. Federal courts have blocked or paused several terminations. The State Department maintains 'Do Not Travel' advisories for many of the same countries DHS claims are safe for return.
DHS Secretary Noem terminated Venezuela TPS, and the Supreme Court allowed it to take effect, de-documenting approximately 350,000 people and exposing them to removal to a country the State Department itself has characterized as unstable and dangerous.
A secret $6 million contract enabled the US to outsource detention to El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison, where HRW documented systematic torture. The unreleased agreement created an unprecedented mechanism to evade domestic legal protections by transferring detainees to a foreign torture facility.
The administration reinstated 'Remain in Mexico,' forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexican cities that the US State Department itself rates as 'Level 4: Do Not Travel' due to kidnapping and violence. MSF documented kidnapping rates as high as 75% among those returned under the policy.
The administration imposed an unprecedented total ban on asylum claims at the southern border, shutting down the CBP One app and eliminating all avenues for protection. A federal judge ruled the president 'cannot adopt an alternative immigration system which supplants the statutes that Congress has enacted.'
The immediate shutdown of the CBP One asylum scheduling app on Inauguration Day cancelled 30,000 appointments and stranded 270,000 asylum seekers, eliminating the primary legal pathway to request protection at the US border.
The administration indefinitely suspended refugee resettlement and set the lowest admissions cap in US history at 7,500, prioritizing white Afrikaners, while stranding refugees mid-transit including families who had sold their belongings for the journey.
Continued US arms transfers to Israel during ICJ genocide proceedings, including emergency bypasses of Congressional review, combined with active diplomatic defense of Israel at the ICJ, raising serious questions of complicity in genocide under the Genocide Convention.