Advocacy groups representing migrants deported from the United States to Equatorial Guinea have filed a complaint with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, seeking to block further transfers under a controversial third-country deportation arrangement linked to the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The complaint, submitted on Friday on behalf of 14 deportees from African countries, challenges a policy that allows the United States to send individuals to Equatorial Guinea when they cannot be safely returned to their home countries.
The legal action argues that the practice exposes deportees to serious risks and violates protections guaranteed under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
The complaint was filed by an international coalition that includes Asian Americans Advancing Justice, the Global Strategic Litigation Council, EG Justice, the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa, and the Pan African Lawyers Union.
The groups are asking the African Commission to suspend further repatriations and ensure deportees have access to legal representation and other protections.
According to the filing, all 14 individuals had obtained legal protection in the United States against deportation to their countries of origin.
The complaint alleges that some deportees in Equatorial Guinea are being held in conditions amounting to arbitrary and indefinite detention.
The Gambia-based commission may choose to hear the case directly or refer it to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Tanzania.
Human rights groups said six of the deportees represented in the complaint were forcibly repatriated from Equatorial Guinea within the past week despite expressing fears of persecution or torture.
Three were later returned to Equatorial Guinea after their home countries declined to accept them, while lawyers said they had lost contact with the remaining three.
The other eight deportees remain detained in Equatorial Guinea.
Rights advocates estimate that about 32 people have been deported to Equatorial Guinea since last year, though the total number remains unclear.
The Trump administration has defended third-country deportations as lawful and part of a strategy "to end illegal and mass immigration and bolster America’s border security."
Equatorial Guinea’s government did not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding the complaint.