'I feel kidnapped': Latino immigrants say they're in legal limbo after being deported to country in Africa
Roughly 25,000 people have been deported to so-called third countries.
Since last month, Yasmany Moreno de Armas has been living what he calls a "nightmare." The 32-year-old Cuban's new home is in the Central African Republic, a country currently classified as an extreme-risk destination for Americans due to armed conflict, violent crime and the threat of terrorism.
Ten years ago, Moreno de Armas arrived in the U.S. after fleeing Cuba. He was legally allowed into the country under a policy that permitted Cubans who reached U.S. soil to stay and pursue legal residency.
Moreno de Armas was living in Miami with his family and working at a meatpacking plant when federal immigration authorities detained him last May. He had been trying to obtain legal status through asylum after other forms of legal relief were denied.
He was placed in federal custody and moved among detention centers across the country. Last May, while in a detention facility in Louisiana, he told ABC News he believed he was being moved again when he was placed on a plane with a handful of other detainees.
Two hours into the flight, Moreno de Armas said he was told he was on a deportation flight to a country in Africa.
"I thought it was a lie," he said in Spanish.
Moreno de Armas is one of roughly 25,000 people deported to so-called third countries during the Trump administration's ongoing immigration crackdown, according to the immigrant rights organization Human Rights First. Third-country deportations are the removal of immigrants to a foreign country where they do not hold citizenship or have personal ties.
The Immigration and Nationality Act allows the Department of Homeland Security to deport migrants to third countries when they have proven that they could be persecuted in their country of origin or if that country cannot receive them.
According to immigration lawyers and advocates, third-country removals are not new, but they are rare. In recent months, the Trump administration has ramped up third-country deportations after creating a web of formal deals with nearly three dozen countries to deport asylum seekers, refugees and migrants with criminal records with little to no warning.
Some of the new destinations include Liberia, Ghana, the Central African Republic and Sierra Leone.
"The Trump administration is systematically and very cruelly sending people to third countries without prior notice, without due process, without any opportunity to object to what is happening to them," immigration attorney Meredyth Yoon told ABC News.
"The administration is doing this in ways that are both extremely opaque and lacking transparency," she said.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said Moreno de Armas and other men ABC News interviewed "were deported to a safe country."
"We are applying the law as written," the agency said.
Moreno de Armas and the group of Latin American men deported to the Central African Republic told ABC News they were dismayed that the U.S. government warns its own citizens against traveling to that country. The U.S. State Department's travel advisory warns Americans not to travel there due to risks of unrest, crime, kidnapping, landmines, health issues and terrorism.
"This is a country that has been at war for 50 years, where the United States does not allow its American citizens to enter," Moreno de Armas said. "And every day we are at risk."
The men told ABC News they are in "legal limbo," alleging they were deported without their passports or identification documents.
"We don't have a visa here or any papers, we are illegal," said Aristides Fernandez Garcia, a Cuban immigrant who was also deported. "We're prisoners here, they won't let us leave or go anywhere. Right now, even if I want to and have the means to travel to any other country, I can't."
Savi Arvey, director of policy for refugee and immigrant rights at Human Rights First, said the U.S. has spent nearly $50 million on third-country deportation deals.
"I think the fact that the Trump administration is sending refugees to the most dangerous countries in the world, to countries run by corrupt autocrats where they've been arbitrarily detained and sent back to persecution and torture, shows that the administration has a complete disregard for due process, for international law and for human dignity," Arvey said.
"I feel kidnapped," Fernandez Garcia said. "They have violated all the rights that exist in life, because we are human beings."
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