The United States has deported LGBTQ+ people to countries where their identities expose them to danger, despite earlier court protection. An October 5 Reuters investigation documented 40 such cases involving transfers to African countries that criminalize same-sex relations or are hostile to LGBTQ+ people.
The Department of Homeland Security told Reuters that immigration enforcement does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. It defended third-country removals as a public safety measure. Nevertheless, the investigation raises a fundamental question: what does protection mean if a government can send someone into another foreseeable threat?
Protection with a dangerous gap
A third-country deportation sends someone to a country other than their own. However, a court decision preventing return to one country does not necessarily prohibit removal everywhere else.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services explains that withholding of removal differs from asylum. It prevents removal to a country where the person meets the relevant persecution threshold, but it can leave removal to another country possible. Consequently, describing everyone affected as having received asylum would obscure the legal distinction.
That distinction has enormous practical consequences. A person may convince a judge that returning home would endanger their life, yet still face another removal process. The safety of the proposed destination therefore requires its own assessment.
Warnings preceded the latest investigation
In June, Immigration Equality published Delivered to Danger, a report examining the risks of these agreements for LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers. The organization described transfers that expose people to criminalization, detention, violence, and possible return to the countries they originally fled.
Its concerns also extend to people whose asylum claims have not received a full hearing. The organization argues that transferring responsibility to another government can prevent meaningful access to protection.
Moreover, danger does not depend solely on whether police regularly enforce laws against same-sex intimacy. Immigration Equality warns that such laws can encourage abuse by families, communities, and officials. A receiving government’s willingness to accept someone does not, by itself, establish that the person will be safe.
A journey back into hiding
Earlier reporting illustrates the human consequences. In February, The Associated Press described the experience of Farah, a gay Moroccan woman who fled family violence and sought protection in the United States.
Although an immigration judge protected her from return to Morocco, authorities sent her to Cameroon, where same-sex relations are also illegal. She subsequently returned to Morocco and went into hiding. AP reviewed her protection order and reported that lawyers verified parts of her account.
A different destination does not erase the risk
International protection principles address both direct and indirect return to danger. UNHCR explains that non-refoulement prohibits transfers into specified risks of persecution or serious harm, including torture. The principle also applies to third-country transfers.
Indirect refoulement occurs when an intermediate country sends someone onward to a place where they face such danger. Therefore, assessing safety requires looking beyond the first flight’s destination. Authorities must consider what may happen after arrival, including the possibility of another forced transfer.
This does not mean every third-country removal automatically violates international law. The person’s circumstances, the risks involved, and the available safeguards matter. However, changing the route cannot make those obligations disappear.
Safety must survive the deportation flight
Immigration Equality calls for an end to transfers to unsafe destinations, public disclosure of agreements, and meaningful opportunities to challenge removal. It also urges stronger access to lawyers and judicial review.
The moral test is straightforward. When someone establishes that persecution threatens their life, protection should lead to practical safety. A system that recognizes that danger and then exposes the person to comparable abuse fails the purpose of offering refuge.
Governments can debate immigration policy without treating LGBTQ+ people’s safety as expendable. Any policy claiming to protect human life must account for what happens after the plane lands.
