United States • • • 🌿 Progressive

Avión de deportación en una pista de aeropuerto de Estados Unidos al amanecer
Vuelo de deportación en Estados Unidos, imagen alusiva. · Erick Prometeo Media

Third-country deportations: official examples and open questions

Homeland Security released examples of foreign nationals deported to third countries when their home countries would not take them back, with murder, rape and…

--- The context --- The Department of Homeland Security highlighted examples of foreign nationals deported to third countries under agreements that allow a person to be sent to a country other than their country of origin. According to the official explanation, that route is used when the home country will not take the person back. The release is a one-sided official statement: it lists cases, dates and convictions, but it does not identify the receiving countries or provide court documents or independent records that would allow each file to be checked within the same publication. --- The facts --- Among the cited cases is Jesus Munoz-Gutierrez, from Mexico, deported on May 20, 2025, with a conviction for second-degree murder in Florida. On the same date, Jose Manuel Rodriguez-Quinones, from Cuba, was deported with convictions including first-degree murder with a weapon, cocaine trafficking and arson in Florida, as was Enrique Arias Hierro, also from Cuba, with convictions including attempted second-degree murder, kidnapping and robbery using a deadly weapon in Florida. The list adds for that date Thongxay Nilakout, from Laos, convicted of first-degree murder in California, and Tuan Thanh Phan, from Vietnam, convicted of first-degree murder in Washington. The list continues with deportations on July 14, 2025, including Roberto Mosquera-Del Peral, from Cuba, convicted of first-degree premeditated murder in Florida, and Dung Tien Nguyen, from Vietnam, convicted of an indecent or lewd act with a child under 16 and second-degree rape in Oklahoma. For August 15, 2025, it cites, among others, Luis Vieira Andrade, from Cape Verde, convicted of rape of a child with force in Massachusetts, and Zakaria Farah Abdi, from Somalia, convicted of second-degree murder in Minnesota. The most recent case cited is Pheap Rom, from Cambodia, deported on October 4, 2025, with convictions for murder and aggravated assault in Pennsylvania. The predominant offenses in the list are murder, rape and drug trafficking. --- The positions --- The official position, expressed by Secretary Markwayne Mullin in statements reported here in attributed indirect form, holds that thanks to these agreements it has been possible to deport some of the worst criminal offenders, including cases that, he said, not even their home countries would take back. Mullin also indicated that for far too long people ordered removed by a judge avoided deportation simply because there was no place to send them, and he maintained that third-country removals are fully legal and that the days of avoiding deportation are over. The release includes no responses from the deported people, their defense counsel or the countries of origin named. --- What remains unknown --- The release does not name the third countries that received these people or explain what procedural safeguards, reception conditions or oversight mechanisms applied to each transfer. It also does not state whether each person exhausted appeals or challenges before deportation, nor does it link to the judgments it cites. Without those elements, readers can verify what the authority claims, but cannot fully reconstruct the legal and material path of each case from this single official source alone. --- Unanswered questions --- Which countries received each of these deported people and under what conditions were they taken in? Did each person exhaust every available remedy before being deported to a third country? Will the authority publish the court documents and the agreements backing each transfer it cited? --- EPM analysis --- Read with caution, the list serves a limited but real informative purpose: it puts concrete names, dates and convictions on a policy that had previously been described only in general terms. At the same time, its one-sided character requires distinguishing between what is established within the statement, that these deportations were announced with those records, and the due-process and destination questions the statement does not resolve. The seriousness of the cited offenses does not remove the need for safeguards or for transparency about where each person was sent. 📌 EPM Take: In EPM's view, these examples confirm that third-country agreements are already being applied in cases involving very serious convictions, but the official information available remains incomplete for judging the policy as a whole. The receiving countries, the safeguards applied in each transfer and independent verification of the files are still missing. Offenses as serious as murder, rape and drug trafficking demand firm state action, and that firmness gains legitimacy when it is accompanied by documented due process and publicly checkable data. Until those elements are published, this list should be read as the official version of part of the facts, not as the complete picture of the program.
📤 Share on Telegram

¿Te gustó este artículo? Recibe cobertura global en tu correo.

Suscríbete gratis / Subscribe free