Fears over deportations

THE US government has sent five men who it describes as “barbaric” criminals to the small African nation of Eswatini in an expansion of the largely secretive third-country deportation programme.

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The US has already deported eight men to another African country, South Sudan, after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on sending people to countries where they have no ties.

The South Sudanese government has declined to say where those men, also described as violent criminals, are after it took custody of them nearly two weeks ago.

In a late-night post on X, homeland security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the men sent to Eswatini, who are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos, had arrived on a plane but did not say when or where. She said they were all convicted criminals and “individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back”.