DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — When a U.S. immigration judge told a 28-year old refugee from East Africa that he was free to leave detention in California after 13 months, he was overjoyed. Though an asylum request was denied, the judge ruled he could not be deported home because it would put him in danger.

“He told me: ‘Welcome to the U.S.,’” the refugee told The Associated Press, which saw his legal documents. “You are now protected by the U.S. law, so you can leave the center, work and stay in this country.”

But he was never freed, and instead was later handcuffed and put on a flight to Equatorial Guinea, an authoritarian petrostate in West Africa that signed a secretive deal with the Trump administration and has become a transit hub for deported migrants. It holds him and others in detention, and has no asylum policy.

He requested anonymity for fear of repercussions, saying he fled his country after being beaten, persecuted and imprisoned because of his ethnicity.

He is among 29 people deported to Equatorial Guinea, which the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jeanne Shaheen, has called “one of the most corrupt governments in the world.”

The first American pope, Leo XIV, who has criticized the Trump administration’s treatment of migrants as “extremely disrespectful,” is visiting Equatorial Guinea in April.

Judge’s order is no guarantee of protection

At least seven African nations have signed deals with the U.S. to facilitate deportations of third-country nationals, which legal experts said are effectively a legal loophole for the U.S. Most deportees received legal protection from U.S. judges shielding them against being returned to their home countries, their lawyers said.

AP previously interviewed a gay asylum-seeker from Morocco who was deported to Cameroon and, believing she had no choice, agreed to be returned to her home country, where homosexuality is illegal.

In a phone interview, the 28-year-old refugee said authorities in Equatorial Guinea pressure him to return home even though he lodged an asylum application there, which AP has seen.

“They told us there is no any asylum or any protection in this country for us,” he said. “So the best option is to leave the country as soon as possible.”

But he said returning to a country ravaged by ethnic conflict was “not an option.”

The U.S. is deporting people to third countries “to circumvent laws that forbid sending a person to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened,” said Meredyth Yoon, litigation director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, who has helped deportees to Equatorial Guinea.

She verified significant parts of the 28-year-old asylum-seeker’s account.

“Once deported, these individuals face impossible alternatives: indefinite detention without access to counsel, or forced deportation to the very countries they fled from,” she said.

Handcuffed on a flight with an unknown destination

The 29 people deported to Equatorial Guinea were from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Mauritania, Angola, Congo, Chad, Georgia, Ghana and Nigeria, according to their visiting lawyer, who requested anonymity given the country’s human rights record. He said authorities did not allow him to see most of them.

The 28-year-old refugee said he was deported in January. Before that, he said, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pressed him to sign a document saying he wanted to return to his country voluntarily. He said they were surprised he could read it, and quoted one as saying: “I never knew Black people could read and write.”

When he refused, he said he was transferred to Arizona, where he spent five months in a room without windows with several others. Hygiene conditions in the facility were poor, and getting medical attention was “very difficult.”

“One guy in my room became crazy and started shouting and hitting himself because he wanted to go home,” he said.

An immigration judge denied his asylum claim but granted him protection under U.S. law and the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which prohibit his return home but would allow his removal to a third country that is deemed safe.

“All the people told me that we are going back to Africa,” he recalled. “I needed to speak with my lawyer, but these ICE officers started using force, they started beating me.”

After transfers to California, Texas and Louisiana, he was handcuffed and driven to an airport in the middle of the night.

The plane belonged to Omni Air International, a charter airline, filled with people like him, he said.

When they landed, he discovered they were in Equatorial Guinea.

When asked about his case, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said ICE officers “did NOT beat, coerce, or use racial slurs” against him, adding that he was “an illegal alien” who “was processed as an expedited removal and was removed to Equatorial Guinea.”

”All of these illegal aliens deported to Equatorial Guinea received due process and had a final order of removal,” they said.

Most have been deported to their home countries

The 28-year old and other deportees are detained in Malabo, the former capital.

“It’s an old closed hotel and there are no other customers,” he said. “Most of us were sick because of the food. I was hospitalized for two days. There is also malaria here, two guys were hospitalized with that.”

Yoon said 17 detainees have been returned to home countries after being told there is no other option, with no asylum policy in Equatorial Guinea.

“Everyone who I’ve talked to since they left is not in a good situation,” she said. “Many of them are in hiding.”

One man who was returned to Mauritania told AP he requested asylum anyway from the prime minister’s office, according to documents seen by AP. The visiting lawyer said he sent a copy to the United Nations refugee agency.

But on Christmas Day, Equatorial Guinea authorities handcuffed him and put him on a plane.

“He alerted (authorities) to the fact that he had applied for asylum, and we contacted the U.S. Embassy in Malabo about his case but didn’t receive a response,” Yoon said.

UHNCR said it could not comment on individual cases. Larissa Schlotterbeck, its head of external engagement in the region, said Equatorial Guinea is working on establishing an asylum system and UNHCR is helping with identifying people who may need protection until then.

African nations are paid millions in opaque deals

The Trump administration has spent at least $40 million to deport about 300 migrants to countries other than their own, according to a February report by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The other African nations known to sign deals are South Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and Cameroon.

Equatorial Guinea received $7.5 million, Senator Shaheen has said.

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and obtained by AP, Shaheen said the “highly unusual payment” raised concerns over the use of taxpayer dollars, and noted that it exceeded U.S. foreign assistance to Equatorial Guinea over the last eight years.

Last year, the U.S. State Department issued a temporary sanctions waiver to allow Teodorin Obiang, son of Equatorial Guinea’s president and the country’s vice president, to visit the U.S. Obiang met with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau.

The U.S. State Department and Equatorial Guinea authorities did not respond to requests for comment.

The 28-year-old asylum-seeker remains in limbo. He called it the worst part of his ordeal.

“Before, we were immigrants with hope,” he said. “But here, there is no more hope.”

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