Lawyers for 5 men deported to an African prison accuse Trump's program of denying them due process

Source: AP

Updated 3:15 PM EDT, September 2, 2025


CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Five men deported by the United States to Eswatini in July have been held in a maximum-security prison in the African nation for seven weeks without charge or explanation and with no access to legal counsel, their lawyers said Tuesday. They accused the Trump administration’s third-country deportation program of denying their clients due process.

The New York-based Legal Aid Society said that it was representing one of the men, Jamaican national Orville Etoria, and that he had been “inexplicably and illegally” sent to Eswatini when his home country was willing to accept him back.

That contradicted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which said when it deported the five men with criminal records that they were being sent to Eswatini because their home countries refused to take them. Jamaica’s foreign minister has also said that the Caribbean country didn’t refuse to take back deportees.

Etoria was the first of at least 20 deportees sent by the U.S. to various African nations in the last two months to be identified publicly.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/immigrants-deportees-trump-eswatini-prison-3f65f8c2734cce31cb3b04e07cd1257f