By: Emma Eckenhausen
“Honestly, I had never heard of Liberia,” said Arin Garcia Yepes, a Colombian migrant deported by the United States to Liberia on August 20, 2026. Garcia Yepes is among a growing number of Latin American migrants who have been removed to African countries where they are not citizens and often have no prior connection to the continent. As part of the Trump administration’s “third-country” deportation policy, at least 35 countries have brokered deals with the US government to receive deportees, with significant financial payments forming part of the deals. According to The Deportation Project, which tracks third-country removals from the United States, at least 25,447 people were deported to countries other than their countries of origin between January 2025 and August 31, 2026. These countries include Mexico, Liberia, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Kosovo, and Burundi, among others, with Mexico receiving the majority of those migrants.
Federal immigration law does not require every noncitizen with a final removal order to be returned to their country of citizenship. Federal immigration law generally prioritizes removal to a country designated by the noncitizen, followed by the person’s country of citizenship and other countries to which the person has a connection. If removal to those countries is impracticable, inadvisable, or impossible, the government may ultimately seek removal to a third country willing to accept the individual. However, 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3) prohibits removal to a country where a noncitizen’s life or freedom would be threatened because of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Additionally, withholding of removal or protection under the Convention Against Torture may bar removal to a particular country, but does not necessarily prevent removal to a different third country.
But what protections do noncitizens have before they are sent to a third country? That question was addressed this month by the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in D.V.D. v. Department of Homeland Security (2026). The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appealed a final judgment from the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts regarding a class action in which the complaint principally alleged that DHS had adopted an unlawful policy of removing noncitizens with final removal orders to “third countries,” i.e., countries not mentioned in their final removal orders, without providing them with effective notice and a meaningful opportunity to claim that they reasonably feared persecution or torture in those countries. A three-judge panel affirmed in part, holding that § 1231(b)(3), FARRA/CAT, and their implementing regulations require that noncitizens be provided with effective notice and a meaningful opportunity to present a fear-of-torture claim before DHS may remove them to a third country. DHS has maintained that its third-country removal policy remains in effect while the First Circuit’s ruling awaits formal implementation, and the government is expected to appeal to the Supreme Court.
