Pheap Rom thought he was being transferred toanother detention centerwhen last fall he saw “Eswatini” onhis paperwork.
Instead, the 43-year-old Cambodian refugee was put on a plane to thesmall African kingdomand held for months in a maximum-security prison, where he had no legal status, no charges against him and little ability to challenge his confinement.
With that imprisonment, Rom joined a growing number of migrants caught in a broader shift inU.S. deportation policy. Over the last year, the Trump administration has dramatically expanded a little-known tactic of sending migrants to countries where they have no ties. Critics say this outsources detention to foreign governments − often with records of human rights abuses, minimal oversight and unclear legal protections.
In more than two dozen countries, deportees like Rom have been held in hotels, shelters and prisons under agreements brokered by the United States during PresidentDonald Trump's second term.
"They’re just being snatched up, thrown on a plane and sent out to these countries," Rom told USA TODAY in a video call from Cambodia, where he's lived since late March, after spending over five months in an Eswatini prison. Rom is just the second person released from Eswatini's Matsapha Correctional Centre, where at least 19 people deported from the United States have been held.
Rom had served a 15-year prison sentence for attempted murder in Pennsylvania, and after doing his time, federal officials shuffled him to several immigrant detention centers over the course of nearly 11 months. Due to his conviction, Rom figured he’d likely be deported to Cambodia, where his family fled from a genocide before he was born in a refugee camp in neighboring Thailand.
TheTrump administrationhad different plans when they sent him and nine others on a plane to Eswatini from Louisiana on Oct. 4.
Lawyers dispute where he’s sent
Rom arrived to the United States as a 3-year-old refugee in 1985 and got a green card in 1987. He was convicted in 2009 of attempted murder, aggravated assault and unlawful possession of a firearm. His lawyer, Tin Thanh Nguyen, said the incident stemmed from self-defense after a group of men tried to shoot him and he fired his weapon back.
In separate statements, the Department of Homeland Security said Rom received due process and was originally removed to Thailand, where Rom has no citizenship. After USA TODAY sent federal officials evidence provided by Rom and Nguyen of his detention in Eswatini and return to Cambodia, DHS sent a second statement saying Rom was sent to Eswatini.
Federal records show an immigration judge issued Rom's removal order in 2010.
"We are applying the law as written," a DHS statement said. "If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period."
The United States has long deported immigrants without legal status who are convicted of crimes. American officials typically contact the person’s origin country to facilitate their removal.
Human rights group criticizes ‘enforced disappearances’ by US
Before Trump’s second term, a person's deportation due to their immigration status hasn't meant another country incarcerates them.
American law doesn’t prohibit someone from being sent to another country, but immigration officials seldom did so, according to Dara Lind, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, an immigrant rights advocacy organization. It happened only when someone couldn’t be returned to certain home countries such as Cuba, often due to strained relations with the United States.
Nguyen said the federal government didn’t contact Cambodia to facilitate Rom’s removal to Eswatini, Africa’s only absolute monarchy, which has about 1.1 million residents. Cambodia’s foreign ministry previously told theFrench news agency AFPit accepts deportees from the United States, so it was unclear why Rom ended up in Eswatini’s prison. Cambodia's foreign ministry didn't respond to emailed requests for comment.
Since January 2025, the Trump administration has formed third-country removal agreements with at least 27 countries, mostly in Africa and Latin America, according to theMigration Policy Institute, an American think tank.
In response to emailed questions about the agreements, the State Department declined to comment on details of diplomatic communications. A State Department statement said implementing Trump’s immigration policies is a top priority.
Lind said the agreements fall into uncharted territory, with no clear rights for deportees, nor the legal or criminal frameworks to hold them. Agreements made publicly available in court battles and public record requests, such as forEl Salvador,RwandaandEswatini, have included language assuring that countries uphold international law around protections for refugees and against torture.
In September, Human Rights Watch, a New York-based nonprofit watchdog, saidremoval deals made with African countrieshave put hundreds of people at risk of arbitrary detention, ill treatment and forced relocation of refugees or asylum seekers to countries where they’re likely to face persecution.
“The United States is doing enforced disappearances,” Nicole Waddersheim, deputy Washington director at Human Rights Watch, said, calling the practice a human rights abuse. “The onus is on the United States, and they’ll say it’s on the host country, to find these people that they deported.”
The administration’s policy began with a$4.76 million agreement with El Salvador, where nearly 250 Venezuelan men — most of whom were asylum seekers with no criminal record — were sent on military flights in March 2025 to anotorious mega-prison. Some people have alleged torture and sexual assault inside the prison, called theTerrorism Confinement Center.
The United States has even sanctioned some countries it now entrusts to hold deportees, such as Rwanda, a central African country whosemilitary officials were sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in March. Despite that, Rwanda maintains a contract with the U.S. to house up to 250 people under a $7.5 million agreement. As of January, at least seven people have been sent to Rwanda at an estimated cost of around $1.1 million per detainee.
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High costs for third-country removals
The Trump administration has not released an official tally on people deported or total costs for the federal program. However, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,released a report in Februaryestimating the program has included around 300 migrants and cost over $40 million as of Jan. 31.
“The Administration’s third country deportations deals are wasteful, cruel and putting U.S. credibility abroad at risk,” Shaheen said in a statement to USA TODAY.
George Fishman, a former DHS official in the first Trump administration and a senior fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stricter immigration policy, said third-country removals can be used to instill fear in immigrants without legal status of what could happen if they stay in the United States, which gives them an incentive to leave on their own.
The practice gives the United States leverage to force countries to accept migrants by placing their citizens in legal limbo and unpleasant conditions, he said.
“If you don’t enter into one of these agreements,” Fishman said, “you may see things you don’t like.”
Thememorandum of understanding with Eswatini, signed in May 2025, allowed the United States to send up to 160 people there under a $5.1 million agreement. But with only 19 known detainees, that cost comes to over $413,000 per detainee, according to Shaheen's report. Rom, who has a mother in her 70s and a daughter in college in Pennsylvania, wonders whether Americans know how much they’ve paid to hold people like him indefinitely and without any criminal charges.
In Eswatini, Rom described the prison as having mold and infestations of bugs, especially mosquitoes. Prison guards listened in to detainees' calls, he said, which were limited to around one 10-minute call per week. In early April,deportees in Eswatini won a high court casefor the right to meet with local lawyers in the country.
Only one other person, a Jamaican man, has been released from Eswatini’s prison. In July,Jamaican foreign affairs minister Kamina Johnson Smith saidon X that American officials never contacted the country's officials about moving to facilitate his removal.
The practice is akin to human trafficking, said Nguyen, who also represents third-countrydetainees in South Sudan, which is on the verge of civil war. Around eight immigrants, including nationals from Laos, Vietnam and Mexico, were originally deported to South Sudan, where Nguyen says he has no contact with his clients.
“I'm afraid that we're setting the precedent for other people in the future to be detained abroad,” Nguyen said.
In February, a Massachusetts federal judge, appointed by former President Joe Biden, found the administration’s third-country removal policy illegal. But in March, the 1st Circuit Court of Appealsgranted the administration’s requestto pause the Massachusetts ruling as the court reviews expedited appeal.
In mid-April, theDemocratic Republic of Congo became the latest country to accept people, despite the African nationexperiencing armed conflict. Around 15 migrants, mostly from Latin America, are being held in a Kinshasa hotel. While the agreement details haven’t been made public, lawyers said detainees in Congo have orders withholding removal, in which an immigration judge found they were likely to face persecution in their home country if they were deported.
Deportees left only with 'bad options'
U.S.-based lawyer Alma David represents one person held in Congo, along with others held in Cameroon, where more than a dozen people have been placed in a dormitory-style shelter. She also represents deportees in Eswatini, including men from Yemen, Haiti, Cuba and another who is stateless.
David said there appears to be a pattern of what she called “extra-hemispheric deportation." For example, she said, American officials tend to place Latin Americans in Africa, while people from African countries are often sent to Costa Rica, in Central America.
The practice coerces people into dropping immigrant protection claims, including seeking asylum, David said, adding people are left with only "bad options."
“Maybe choosing the familiar-bad over the unfamiliar-bad is the preferred option,” she said.
Rom had no choice left by the time he was imprisoned again, this time in Eswatini. Through his lawyer, he was able to contact Cambodian officials, who facilitated his travel to the capital Phnom Penh. He arrived on March 26, more than five months after he said he was forced on a plane from the United States.
When he arrived to Cambodia, he recalled asking his friend for permission to leave the house. He didn’t step outside for days.
Instead, he said he'd look out the window, afraid to leave to start his new life in another country where he had never been.
Lauren Villagranof USA TODAY contributed to this report.
Eduardo Cuevas is based in New York City. Reach him by email atemcuevas1@usatoday.comor on Signal at emcuevas.01.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Inside Trump's globetrotting third-country removal program
