Laotian deportee freed in Eswatini after year under Trump third-country policy
A Laotian man deported by the United States to Eswatini under the Trump administration's immigration crackdown was released from a maximum-security prison in the African country on Sunday after being held there for more than a year, his lawyer said. Phone Chomsavanh was among five immigrants sent to Eswatini in July 2025 under the administration's controversial third-country deportation programme.
His US-based lawyer, Tin Thanh Nguyen, said Chomsavanh has now left Eswatini and landed in Johannesburg on his way to Laos. Nguyen said Chomsavanh was told only shortly before the military cargo plane landed in Eswatini that he was being deported there.
Chomsavanh and the four other immigrants deported with him had been convicted of serious crimes in the US, but had completed their sentences by the time they were sent to the Matsapha Correctional Complex near Eswatini's administrative capital, Mbabane. Nguyen said, "He had already served his time. Instead they put him on a plane without telling him where it was headed and left him in a prison in a country he had never heard of, where nobody ever accused him of anything."
Nguyen added, "He sat there for more than a year. No notice, no hearing, no chance to object. That is not due process by any definition." In separate messages to The Associated Press, he said Chomsavanh had left Eswatini and landed in Johannesburg en route to Laos. An Eswatini government spokesperson did not immediately acknowledge Chomsavanh's release.
According to his lawyer, Chomsavanh was born in a refugee camp in Thailand after his parents fled Laos, and his family moved to the United States when he was seven years old. He is one of around 500 immigrants deported from the US to African countries that are not their home nations since the programme began last year, according to advocacy groups Human Rights First and Refugees International, which have been tracking the removals.
Around a dozen African countries have accepted such deportees from the US, in some cases in exchange for millions of dollars in payments. According to the agreement between the two countries, Eswatini, Africa's last absolute monarchy ruled by a king, was paid USD 5.1 million by the Trump administration to take deportees. Eswatini has received around 30 deportees so far.
The programme has been strongly criticised by rights groups and lawyers because immigrants are being held in countries where they have no ties and where they have not been charged with any crime. It has also faced legal challenges in the US and in some of the countries where deportees have been sent. The Trump administration has defended the policy as a way to quickly remove immigrants with final deportation orders when their home countries may not immediately take them back.
Last month, a US appeals court upheld a judge's order halting the programme, saying immigrants facing removal were not being given time to challenge deportation to a third country if they feared persecution or torture there. Last week, however, the US Supreme Court temporarily allowed President Donald Trump's administration to continue swiftly removing immigrants to third countries while it prepares to hear arguments in the case in December. Chomsavanh's case has again highlighted a programme that has been carried out largely in secrecy, with little transparency over how many immigrants have been sent to third countries and the conditions in which they are being held.
