US deportation flight carrying Iranians lands in C.African Republic

A US deportation flight landed in the Central African Republic on Friday, lawyers and activists said, carrying nationals from Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey and Georgia as part of the latest "third-country" deportation under US President Donald Trump.

Deportations of people -- including those with legal protections -- to countries where they have no links have become a staple Trump's expanded crackdown on immigration.

The US State Department advisory for the impoverished, violence-wracked CAR reads: "Do not travel to Central African Republic for any reason."

Trump has described Iran, with whom Washington is currently at war, as a "terrorist regime" but is nonetheless deporting nationals who have fled the country, including at least two Iranian women slated for the flight, their lawyer said.

The Iranians had been granted "withholding of removal" -- a status that carries weaker rights than asylum but has been considered a "win" in immigration court under previous administrations.

"We fear they will ultimately be forced to return to the countries they originally fled," as has repeatedly happened with other deportees sent across Africa, their attorney, Emily Trostle, told AFP.

The flight took off from Alexandria, Louisiana, on Thursday evening, according to the ICE Flight Monitor, affiliated with non-profit Human Rights First.

It then made a scheduled stopover in Ghana -- which is itself a hub for third-country deportations -- Friday afternoon and landed in Central African capital Bangui around 2100 GMT.

It was unclear if some people were to be taken off the plane in Ghana or if they were all sent to the Central African Republic, said Alma David, a US immigration lawyer familiar with the case.

Ghanaian immigration authorities did not respond to a request for comment.

She said those headed to the Central African Republic "are mainly withholding grantees from a variety of countries, including Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Georgia".

In recent years, a United Nations peacekeeping mission, Rwandan troops and Russian mercenaries from the notorious Wagner group have helped to improve the Central African Republic's security situation.

But anti-government fighters and armed groups are still present throughout the unstable, mineral-rich country.

- Previous allegations of abuse -

As part of its crackdown, the Trump administration has expanded who is targeted for deportation and where they can be sent.

Washington has argued it is only barred from sending people with "withholding of removal" to their country of origin -- and thus can send them anywhere else, even if those countries then send them home.

Deportees and lawyers have described unsanitary holding conditions in Ghana and indefinite detention in Eswatini, among other alleged abuses.

From Ghana and Equatorial Guinea, another African hub, some people have been sent back home to countries in which US judges ruled they faced danger.

It was not clear what would happen to the deportees upon arrival in the Central African Republic.

It appears to be Bangui's first accord with Washington, which has made a slew of opaque deportation deals in Africa and elsewhere.

"We don't know if these migrants who are coming to and will be received on Central African soil are in transit or if they are entitled to apply for asylum," Paul Crescent Beninga, a political scientist and civil society leader, told AFP.

"The government doesn't want to provide any answers, the government isn't communicating."

A State Department spokesman said "we remain unwavering in our commitment to end illegal and mass immigration" but did not answer questions about the terms of the deal.

Central African authorities did not respond to a request for comment.

"These individuals are being removed from the United States and abandoned in a country where they have no status, no connection and no support network," Trostle said.

Last week, a lawsuit was filed with the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights -- the continent's top human rights body -- to halt US deportations to Equatorial Guinea, a small, authoritarian petro-state that has served as a waystation for African deportees.

The lawsuit also seeks to stop Equatorial Guinea's onward expulsion of the deportees to their home countries.

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