UN experts urge halt to third-country deportation deals

Independent United Nations human-rights experts on September 28 urged the United States and 35 countries and territories they said had agreements with Washington to halt arrangements that send people to countries other than their own. The experts warned that the transfers risk exposing deportees to torture, enforced disappearance, trafficking and other abuses, and called for access to fair asylum procedures and due process to be restored. The experts said at least 23,000 third-country nationals had been sent to 29 countries and territories. A separate investigation reported at least 25,447 people deported between January 2025 and August 31, 2026, including transfers by land and air. The figures have different reported scopes and are not reconciled in the available accounts, so they do not establish a single agreed total. The experts identified children, women, people with disabilities, trafficking victims, LGBT people, human-rights defenders and stateless people as among those particularly vulnerable.