The Trump administration sent five migrants from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen and Cuba to a small African nation on Tuesday, resuming the practice of so-called third-country deportations after the Supreme Court cleared the practice earlier this month, Department of Homeland Security officials said Tuesday.
The deportations were announced on social media by the agency on Tuesday evening.
“NEW: a safe third country deportation flight to Eswatini in Southern Africa has landed — This flight took individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back,” wrote Tricia McLaughlin, a D.H.S. spokeswoman. She added that the men had been convicted of crimes including murder, assault and robbery.
Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, is a nation of about 6,700 square miles surrounded on three sides by South Africa. The New York Times previously reported negotiations with Eswatini in an investigation detailing how the Trump administration had been looking to get more than 50 countries to take migrants from other places.
Since the early days of the Trump administration, homeland security officials have sent migrants to countries they are not from, including sending hundreds of migrants from countries including China, Iran and Pakistan to Panama and Costa Rica in February.
Later, the administration sent Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, and earlier this month, after weeks of legal delays, it sent eight migrants from several countries to South Sudan.
