Mbabane – The African kingdom of Eswatini said it received and jailed 10 more deportees from the United States Monday as part of a US scheme to expel undocumented migrants.
Eswatini took in a first group of five men in July, with Ghana, Rwanda and South Sudan also accepting US deportees in recent months in a programme criticised by rights groups.
The tiny southern African nation agreed in May to accept up to 160 deportees in exchange for $5.1 million to “build its border and migration management capacity”, according to a deal signed with the United States and seen by AFP.
Its correctional services department said in a statement Monday it “confirms the arrival of ten (10) third country nationals from the United States of America”.
It did not give details but said they had been “securely accommodated in one of the country’s correctional facilities” and the government would “facilitate their orderly repatriation”.
A US-based attorney representing some of the deportees said the new group included “three Vietnamese, one Filipino, one Cambodian”.
The lawyer, Tin Thanh Nguyen, represents two of the Vietnamese nationals who arrived Monday.
“One of my clients … tried to assert a reasonable fear of harm being deported to Eswatini, but ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) ignored him and put him on the plane anyways,” he told AFP.
He also represents a Vietnamese and a Laotian who were part of the first group which also included nationals from Cuba, Jamaica and Yemen.
‘Legal black hole’
The deal that Eswatini signed with the United States on May 14 says that the US deportees may include third country nationals “with criminal backgrounds and/or who are designated suspected terrorists”.
Washington said the first group of men had been convicted of crimes in the United States, including child rape and murder, but their lawyers told AFP that all five had long finished serving their sentences.
Eswatini jailed them in its maximum security Matsapha Correctional Centre which is notorious for holding political prisoners and for overcrowding.
One of them, a 62-year-old Jamaican who had reportedly completed a sentence for murder in the United States, was sent back to his country around two weeks ago.
Nguyen said Eswatini was a “legal black hole” and the deportees were denied legal counsel.
His two clients had been detained since mid-July without a charge, he said.
“I cannot call them. I cannot email them. I cannot communicate through local counsel because the Eswatini government blocks all attorney access,” he told AFP.
Lawyers and civil society groups in Eswatini have gone to court to challenge the legality of the detentions.
A local lawyer on Friday won a court ruling allowing him to visit the four men still detained, but the government immediately appealed, suspending the ruling.
US President Donald Trump has overseen a drastic expansion of the practice of deporting people to countries other than their nation of origin, notably by sending hundreds to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
But rights experts have warned the deportations risk breaking international law by sending people to nations where they face the risk of torture, abduction and other abuses.
Human Rights Watch last month urged African governments to refuse to accept US deportees and to terminate deals already in effect, saying they violated global rights law.
Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland and landlocked by neighbours South Africa and Mozambique, has been led by King Mswati III since 1986 and his government has been accused of human rights violations.
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Source: AFP
