A coalition of 22 immigrants’ rights organizations participated today in a public hearing held by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), as part of the IACHR’s 195th session held in Guatemala City, Guatemala. The hearing examined the Trump administration’s widespread and escalating use of third country transfers to expel and deport asylum seekers and migrants to countries where they have no legal or personal ties and where they face serious harm.
The coalition of leading domestic, regional and global human rights organisations requested the hearing with the IACHR to present the Commission with new evidence on the human-rights impacts of the forced transfer agreements. During the hearing, they shared testimonies from people directly affected by these arrangements, highlighting the devastating consequences of these practices including detention without due process, family separation and ongoing legal uncertainty.
The Commission will now assess the evidence presented to inform its recommendations to States involved in transfer agreements that violate international human rights law and international obligations.
Our organizations were pleased that the Office of the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Human Rights of Migrants and the Regional Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) participated in the hearing, demonstrating the importance of the IACHR in monitoring the human rights conditions in the Americas for people seeking safety.
Over the past year, the United States has entered nearly 30 agreements with other countries – including at least 14 countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean - to expel and deport immigrants who are not nationals of those countries. In the past year, the administration has forcibly transferred nearly 14,000 third country nationals to countries in the Americas. People impacted by these forced transfers have included children, families, pregnant people, people with disabilities, individuals with medical vulnerabilities, those with recognized claims to international protection, and those fleeing persecution in their home countries. Immigrants who are forcibly transferred under these agreements have suffered enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture, refoulement, family separation, violations of the rights of the child, and other human rights violations. The United States has targeted people at various stages of their immigration cases, including asylum seekers who had not had their cases heard and people granted withholding of removal or protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).
Following today’s hearing, our organizations respectfully request the IACHR: (1) Move forward with an operational, technical, and dynamic document that specifies the duties of countries in the hemisphere with respect to the deportation agreements referenced; (2) issue a thematic resolution, on the transfer of migrants to third countries to guide and clarify States’ human rights obligations, particularly in ensuring compliance with the principle of non-refoulement and the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; and (3) Consider seeking an advisory opinion, with the consultation of NGOs, from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to interpret the American Convention and other applicable human rights treaties in the Americas in relation to expulsions to third countries. Our organizations also request that the United Nations Special Rapporteur and the Regional Representative of the OHCHR conduct country visits to continue monitoring human rights violations affecting third-country nationals.
Our coalition of organizations include Al Otro Lado; Americans for Immigrant Justice; Amnesty International; Asociación Pop No'j; the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center; Boston University International Human Rights Clinic; Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS); Cornell Law School Transnational Disputes Clinic; Cristosal; Derechos Humanos Integrales en Acción (DHIA); El Instituto para las Mujeres en la Migración (IMUMI); Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project (the Florence Project); Global Strategic Litigation Council; the Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA); Hope Border Institute; Human Rights First (HRF); Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef); Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center; Physicians for Human Rights; Red Pedro Pantoja de Casas y Centros de Derechos Humanos de Migrantes de la Zona Norte (Red Pedro Pantoja); Refugees International and the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center.
“Today, we at Human Rights First join partners in demanding accountability for the Trump administration’s opaque web of forced third-country agreements. Governments across Latin America and the Caribbean are complicit in the administration's mass deportation agenda, with at least 14 countries in the region agreeing to receive third country nationals.” said Savi Arvey, Director of Research and Analysis for Human Rights First. “Through this thematic hearing, we aim to amplify the voices of families separated by these transfers, as well as those of individuals, including asylum seekers and others previously granted protection in the United States, who were sent to third countries, only to be refouled to the very dangers they had fled.”
“We want to send a clear message to governments considering these deals: accepting flights and detaining third country nationals without charge or due process is unlawful and carries legal consequences. Across the region we are bringing cases against governments that are complicit in these arrangements” said Silvia Serna Román, Regional Litigator for Latin America at the Global Strategic Litigation Council (GSLC). “States cannot quietly participate in policies that result in people being detained, disappeared into prisons, denied healthcare and education, or left in legal limbo. We urge the Commission to take action in light of the evidence we have presented today that demonstrate the very tangible and serious human-rights violations caused by these deals.”
“Across the Americas we are seeing people pushed from one country to another without protection, or even a place to sleep,” said Guerline Jozef, Executive Director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance. “We regularly meet families living in extreme conditions after being deported to countries where they have no ties. Governments cannot transfer their responsibility for human rights simply by transferring people with impunity. Migration policies may be written in government offices, but their consequences are lived at borders, the Darien Gap, inhumane, cruel conditions in for-profit immigration detention centers and communities across our regions and around the world. We demand a dignified approach to migration.”
“It is also important to recognise that these policies are being driven by the United States and shaped by global power imbalances.” said Natasha Pérez Tümmler, GSLC Lawyer for the Americas. “The U.S. cannot evade its human-rights obligations by transferring people thousands of miles away, where they are subjected to harm and left in legal limbo. These agreements must end.”
"These agreements constitute a systematic erosion of the right to seek and receive asylum, due process, and non-refoulement,” said Julie Bourdoiseau, Staff Attorney at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS). “Inter-American Court jurisprudence is unambiguous: We cannot send people to third countries where their lives are at risk. Third countries must actually be safe for refugees, with access to a full and fair asylum process to ensure those with valid claims to protection are not returned to persecution or torture. The Honduran government is unable to protect its own citizens, much less the refugees we send there to seek protection. As we pursue accountability in the U.S. courts, we urge the Inter-American Commission to address these practices as the serious human rights violations they are.”
“Our research highlights that these are not isolated agreements, but part of a coordinated effort by the U.S. Government to expand third country removals in dangerous and likely unlawful ways,” said Linda Gordon, Supervising Attorney for the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center Investigations Lab.
“Human rights violations begin long before deportation. In this historic moment we are living through, it is urgent to build public policies that put people and human rights at their center,” said Diana Solís, Advocacy Coordinator for Derechos Humanos Integrales en Accion.
“These secretive deals strip people of their fundamental rights, tear families apart, and expose already vulnerable individuals to extreme harm. In the past year alone, I have met people forcibly sent to countries where they have no ties or support – including an elderly man with dementia who was deported without his phone and could not remember his children’s numbers, and an Armenian mother and her two young children detained for months in Costa Rica,” said Rachel Schmidtke, Senior Advocate for Latin America at Refugees International. “Their stories are not isolated; they are among thousands who have been subjected to these deals and denied their rights and basic dignity. We are exposing these agreements and working with our partners to hold both the United States and recipient governments accountable.”
“Agreements—including third‑country arrangements—that lead to human rights violations are morally indefensible. When migration, immigration, and asylum policies are built on inhumanity, the outcome is always more suffering,” said Margaret Cargioli, directing attorney, policy & advocacy at Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef). “We are now seeing the consequences of third‑country removals: Venezuelan men tortured in CECOT, and people forcibly returned to the very dangers they fled, in clear violation of non‑refoulement principles. No one benefits from the deliberate erosion of humane migration and asylum protections being carried out by the U.S. government. I urge the Commission to take the words of my client Ysqueibel Peñaloza into account: ‘To be disappeared to a 3rd country, is an experience that should never have happened to any person no matter their nationality; it’s an injustice. Being sent to CECOT in El Salvador was complete terror. The mental and physical abuse was torture.’”
“For far too long, the US-Mexico border has witnessed the deportation of people from multiple nationalities from the United States to Mexico, despite the absence of any public agreement between the two countries. Now, we face the mounting pressure of deportations of highly vulnerable individuals from other countries, including pregnant mothers and elders, who are summarily deported, often after suffering abuses during arrests and detention,” said Jesús de la Torre, Assistant Director for Global Migration at the Hope Border Institute.” Once in Mexico, with no support networks, they struggle to access safety and protection. We urge the Commission to continue monitoring and denouncing these practices. We will continue to work to uphold the dignity of all individuals and accompany them, knowing that our rights do not end when we cross borders.”