The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has resumed third-country deportations, announcing on Tuesday a flight landed in Southern Africa’s Eswatini.
The flight carried deportees from various countries that declined to take back their citizens, including five criminal illegal immigrants from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Cuba and Yemen. They were convicted of crimes including child rape, murder, robbery, burglary and aggravated assault.
“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,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin wrote on X.
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.
These depraved monsters have been terrorizing American communities but thanks to @POTUS… pic.twitter.com/TsanIX8H4T
— Tricia McLaughlin (@TriciaOhio) July 16, 2025
The flights are back on after the U.S. Supreme Court overruled an order from U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, who had issued a nationwide injunction to slow down deportations to third countries by placing various restrictions on the process.
McLaughlin shared photos of the men and their criminal convictions, adding “these depraved monsters have been terrorizing American communities but thanks to @POTUS Trump @Sec_Noem they are off of American soil.”
Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, is a small, landlocked African nation of about 6,700 square miles surrounded on three sides by South Africa.
The Trump administration had been barred from sending illegal immigrants to third countries, or countries that are not their home country or listed in their deportation orders, due to the Boston federal judge’s ruling in May.
Murphy’s injunction grounded a flight of criminal illegal aliens, which included five convicted murders, headed to South Sudan. Instead, U.S. officials held them in the small African country of Djibouti.
Earlier this month, after weeks of legal delays, the administration delivered the eight immigrants from several countries to South Sudan, the Associated Press reported.
During an emergency hearing in May, Murphy said the Trump administration’s attempt to fly them to South Sudan “unquestionably” violated a court order. He said that U.S. officials risked being held in contempt of court for violating the injunction he issued in April.
Murphy’s earlier order blocked the administration from sending deportees to third countries without the opportunity for due process and to raise any concerns they had for their safety.
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.
Some illegal immigrants cannot be sent back to their home country due to a credible fear or because their homeland doesn’t want them, complicating an already complex deportation process.
DHS officials sent hundreds of migrants from countries including China, Iran and Pakistan to Panama and Costa Rica in February, The Times reported. The administration made waves in March — prompting backlash from the media and lawmakers — after it sent Venezuelan immigrants and gang members to El Salvador.
According to a July 9 memo from the agency’s acting director, Todd Lyons, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will generally wait at least 24 hours to deport an illegal immigrant after informing them of their removal to a “third country,” Fox News Digital reported.
Lyons noted that the agency could still remove them “with as little as six hours’ notice in exigent circumstances” as long as the individual was provided the chance to speak with an attorney.
Fox News reported the memo said immigrants could be sent to countries that have vowed not to persecute or torture them “without the need for further procedures.”
Although human rights and immigration advocates have raised concerns over the Trump administration’s immigration policies, President Barack Obama made his own headlines for using expedited removal to remove undocumented immigrants from the U.S.
Numbers peaked in fiscal year 2013 when approximately 197,000 people were deported through expedited removal, which represented 46% of the 432,000 removals from the United States that year, according to the American Immigration Council’s explainer on expedited removal.
Democrats have a short memory and seem to be silencing moderates in their party, as well as the Americans who voted for President Trump. They continue to stage political stunts, bicker on social media and incite violence against ICE agents.
The Obama administration focused on deporting recent unauthorized border crossers and those who had committed crimes, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Sound familiar?
Additionally, El Paso Matters and other news outlets have fact checked Obama’s deportation record. The Democrat president formally removed 3 million noncitizens from the U.S. over two terms — more than any other president in American history, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.
Another report estimated that 75% to 83% of those deported under Obama did not see a judge or have the opportunity to plead their case. Annually, between 58% and 84% of these removals were so-called “summary removals” carried out through legal procedures such as “expedited removal” and “reinstatement of removal,” which do not involve a hearing before an immigration judge.
A Nov. 19, 2024, article by El Pais, a Spanish-language newspaper known for its progressive stance, also claims “Trump deported fewer people than Obama, Clinton or Bush, but more indiscriminately.”
During Obama’s presidency from 2009 to 2017, there were 5 million deportations, while George W. Bush’s tenure saw 10 million, and Bill Clinton’s administration reached 12 million, according to the article.
