The United States Supreme Court issued an emergency order on Tuesday that temporarily lifts a lower-court injunction, allowing the federal government to continue sending migrants to “third countries“—nations other than their own homelands—without the procedural safeguards that had been mandated last year. The decision comes as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, revived after the former president’s return to power, pushes dozens of asylum seekers—many of them identified as gay, bisexual or transgender—into jurisdictions where their sexual orientation is criminalized.
Supreme Court clears the path for rapid third-country removals
In a terse emergency order, the nine-justice court, led by a conservative majority, stayed a district-court ruling that required the government to give migrants “sufficient notice and the opportunity to claim fear of torture or persecution” in the destination country. The justices did not provide a detailed rationale, a common practice in urgent rulings. The three liberal justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson—issued a dissent, warning that the policy threatens fundamental human-rights protections. Oral arguments are slated for December, meaning the policy will remain in force for the next several weeks.
Attorney General Todd Blanche hailed the decision, calling the policy “entirely lawful and a critical tool for immigration enforcement.” The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has long argued that eliminating the need for individualized fear-based claims streamlines removals, saves money, and avoids diplomatic friction. The government claims that partner nations have signed agreements guaranteeing they will not subject deportees to torture or persecution, a claim critics say is unreliable.
LGBT asylum seekers caught in the crossfire
Since the policy’s resurgence, at least 40 documented cases involve individuals who obtained legal protection in the United States because of persecution linked to their LGBT status. Reuters tracked these cases by interviewing deportees, immigration lawyers, and reviewing court filings. The list includes people from West Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Russia. Many were sent to countries that explicitly criminalize same-sex relations—Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Eswatini—or to states where the U.S. State Department has flagged “high levels of abuse” against LGBT persons, such as the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
One vivid example is Abdou Latifou, a 44-year-old gay man from Togo. After surviving a mob attack in his home country, Latifou fled to the United States, where an immigration judge granted him protection from removal to Togo. In June, however, ICE placed him on a plane bound for Sierra Leone, where the colonial-era law imposes life imprisonment for consensual same-sex activity. He spent two weeks under police surveillance, was then shuffled back toward Togo, escaped to Benin, and finally settled in Ivory Coast, working as a security guard while living in constant fear of being identified.
Other deportees report similarly harrowing journeys. A bisexual woman from Ghana was forced to spend seven months in Cameroon, unable to speak French, before seeking refuge with relatives in northern Nigeria—a region where “lashes or death by stoning” can be imposed for same-sex conduct. A gay Egyptian man, Ahmed Soliman, was beaten and forced down a flight of stairs in Equatorial Guinea after whistle-blowing on the conditions he faced.
Countries involved and the risks they pose
The United States has struck agreements with at least 29 nations, enabling the removal of more than 25,000 migrants under the “third-country” framework. In Africa, the list includes the Central African Republic, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Eswatini and Equatorial Guinea. Human-rights monitors warn that several of these states are embroiled in conflict, experience rampant corruption, and lack legal safeguards for vulnerable populations.
For LGBT individuals, the danger is acute. In Sierra Leone and Cameroon, consensual same-sex acts can result in life-long imprisonment. In the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, NGOs have documented “corrective rape” and forced conversion therapy. Even in countries where homosexuality is not formally illegal, such as Ivory Coast, activists note a rise in homophobic violence that leaves survivors afraid to appear in public.
International and legal backlash
More than a dozen United Nations human-rights experts have sent a joint communication to the U.S. government, warning that the policy has generated a “cascade of human-rights violations” affecting an estimated 23,000 deportees. Their letter highlights the particular vulnerability of children, women, people with disabilities, trafficking victims, LGBT persons, human-rights defenders and stateless individuals.
U.S. courts have been divided. In February, District Judge Brian Murphy called the government’s claim that deportees had not expressly objected to being sent to repressive states “absurd,” emphasizing that no migrant can be expected to anticipate the conditions of every possible destination. Although the Supreme Court’s emergency order suspends Murphy’s injunction, the case will be revisited later this year.
Advocacy groups such as Immigration Equality argue that the practice “mockery[ies]” the protective intent of asylum law. They note that many of the affected individuals were ineligible for traditional asylum because they entered the United States without first applying in a transit country, a technical barrier that the Biden-era rule—recently vacated—had reinforced.
As the legal battle unfolds, the human toll continues to mount. Families are split, lives are upended, and a generation of LGBT refugees finds itself thrust into environments where the very identity that saved them in America now marks them for persecution.
