The Trump administration is preparing to send roughly 20 Iranian asylum-seekers and other migrants to the Central African Republic under a newly established third-country deportation agreement, a deal that could eventually route hundreds of deportees to the landlocked African nation, Fox News Digital reported. The first flight could depart as early as Thursday.
The arrangement marks the latest in a growing roster of third-country removal deals the administration has pursued to solve a stubborn legal problem: what to do with migrants whose home countries either refuse to accept deportees or where U.S. law bars forced return. Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan all fall into that category. The administration's answer has been to find willing partner nations elsewhere.
At least eight African nations, including Eswatini, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, and Sierra Leone, have already taken in U.S. deportees under similar arrangements. Federal authorities previously struck a comparable deal with the DRC. The Central African Republic agreement, reportedly finalized during a U.S. delegation visit to the capital city of Bangui in May, opens a new corridor.
Reuters reported that the manifest includes people from Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, and at least one Turkish national. Deportees are expected to be housed in apartments in Bangui upon arrival and will not face immediate repatriation to their home countries.
Attorney Emily Trostle represents two Iranian women she says are scheduled for the upcoming flight. Trostle told Fox News Digital that both women arrived in the United States in November 2024, were detained, filed asylum applications, and received protection in the form of "withholding of removal" from a U.S. immigration judge. One is a baptized convert; the other is a democracy activist. Trostle said both face a risk of torture and persecution if forcibly returned to Iran.
The legal distinction matters. "Withholding of removal" is a narrower protection than full asylum, it bars deportation to the specific country where persecution is feared, but it does not necessarily block removal to a third country. That gap is precisely what the administration's third-country agreements exploit.
Whether that approach survives legal challenge is an open question. But the administration's position rests on a straightforward premise: if a migrant cannot be sent home, and the U.S. has no obligation to let that person stay indefinitely, a willing third country provides a lawful exit.
The Central African Republic gained independence from France in 1960 and has endured six coups since. Decades of political instability, weak state authority, and armed insurgencies have fueled persistent violence and what Fox News Digital described as a "risk of mass atrocities against civilians." The country is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan and South Sudan to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of the Congo to the south, and Cameroon to the west, a neighborhood that is itself no picture of stability.
President Faustin-Archange Touadéra won re-election to a third term in December. He has relied heavily on Russia for security assistance, a relationship that has drawn scrutiny from Western governments. But Touadéra has also signaled interest in partnering with Western countries to develop the Central African Republic's critical minerals sector, a potential incentive that could explain his willingness to accept U.S. deportees.
The full terms of the agreement have not been made public. Initial details regarding the total number of migrants, specific nationalities beyond those already reported, and the long-term timing of subsequent flights were not made available. The State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The International Organization for Migration confirmed it will provide strictly voluntary, post-arrival humanitarian assistance to the migrants at the explicit request of the Central African government. The agency was careful to note it remains entirely uninvolved in the actual removals.
That distinction is politically important. The IOM received $85 million in U.S. funding this year. Any appearance of direct participation in deportation operations would expose the organization to criticism from the same international advocacy groups that have challenged the administration's immigration enforcement at every turn. By limiting its role to post-arrival assistance requested by the host government, the IOM keeps formal distance from the removal process itself.
The Central African Republic deal fits within a broader pattern. The administration has increasingly relied on third-country deportation agreements as a mechanism to remove migrants who cannot legally be sent back to their native countries. Border czar Tom Homan has framed the effort as a core promise to President Trump's voters, stating he expects "deportation numbers to increase, border crossings to decrease."
Critics will focus on the conditions in the Central African Republic and argue that sending asylum-seekers to a country with a history of political violence amounts to trading one danger for another. That argument has emotional force. But it sidesteps the underlying policy question the administration is trying to answer: when a foreign national enters the United States without authorization, claims asylum, and comes from a country where direct deportation is legally or practically impossible, what happens next?
For years, the answer was effectively nothing. Migrants in that limbo remained in the U.S. indefinitely, detained or released, but not removed. The third-country model, whatever its imperfections, is at minimum an attempt to close that gap rather than accept permanent residency as the default outcome for anyone who shows up and claims fear of return.
Several unanswered questions hang over the arrangement. The names of the roughly 20 people expected on the first flight have not been disclosed beyond the two Iranian women represented by Trostle. The financial or logistical support the U.S. may be providing to the Central African Republic as part of the deal remains unclear. And whether immigration judges' existing orders, like the withholding of removal granted to Trostle's clients, will be treated as barriers to third-country transfer or merely as bars on return to Iran specifically is a legal question that could land in federal court quickly.
The administration appears to be betting that the legal architecture holds. Third-country removal is not a novel concept in immigration law; it has precedent in international practice, even if its application at this scale to this set of countries is new territory for the United States.
Meanwhile, the State Department this week implemented changes in the Foreign Affairs Manual that formally codified expectations for how diplomats and staff should dress in official settings, the first time the agency has done so. It is a small bureaucratic footnote, but it signals a broader push within the administration to impose order and standards across federal agencies, including those responsible for carrying out these agreements abroad.
For the roughly 20 migrants expected on that first flight, the destination is Bangui, apartments in a city most Americans could not find on a map. For the administration, it is one more proof point that "removal" means removal, not an indefinite stay on American soil.
The policy is blunt. The message is blunter: enter the country illegally, and the U.S. government will find somewhere to send you, even if it is not home.