ABUJA, July 7: It began with threats of US visa bans on a swathe of African nations. Then Washington started to scatter migrants from all over the world to various corners of the continent, often with cash sweeteners for their governments.
Cambodian Pheap Rom, 43, ended up in a notorious high-security prison in tiny Eswatini, which is run with an iron fist by King Mswati III. "I didn't understand why I was being expelled to Africa since I'm Cambodian," he told AFP.
Others were sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda; others still dropped off the radar after being sent to war-torn South Sudan.
The United States is using visa bans and restrictions on African countries to strongarm them into taking people from third countries as part of Donald Trump's crackdown on immigration, two former State Department officials told AFP.
Lawyers say deportees have been thrown into a "legal black hole", held without charge in countries where they have no ties and few if any rights.
Even those deported to stable democracies like Ghana have been abused, dumped without papers by security forces in neighbouring Togo.
Two-thirds of the 39 countries hit by the Trump administration's full or partial travel bans are in Africa -- as are nearly half of nations that have struck murky deportation deals with Washington, according to US Senators and NGOs.
Trump's third-country deportations plan is the brainchild of his hardline anti-immigration adviser Stephen Miller and his Homeland Security Council, the ex-State Department officials said.
The White House did not respond to the allegations, with the State Department only telling AFP that "implementing the Trump Administration's immigration policies is a top priority.
"We remain unwavering in our commitment to end illegal and mass immigration and bolster America's border security," it added.
The first wave of the mass deportations during Trump's second term concentrated on Central and South America. Asylum seekers were sent to Panama and at least 250 Venezuelans, accused of being gang members -- many on flimsy evidence and without due process -- were sent to El Salvador's gigantic Terrorism Confinement Centre known as CECOT.
Africa has since emerged as a second wave, with Washington wielding the stick of visa bans while offering the carrot of millions of dollars to countries like Equatorial Guinea, according to Democratic Senators.�"AFP
