NYT: Immigrants returned to dangerous countries despite U.S. court orders
newsNov 9, 202645456
A New York Times investigation by Megha Rajagopalan, Edward Wong, Ruth Maclean and Hamed Aleaziz found the Trump administration has used foreign partners to accept deportees and then send them to countries the United States itself would be barred from returning them to. Records and reporting show more than 110 immigrants who had court-ordered protections against deportation were nonetheless sent to third countries and then ended up back in places where they faced risks of torture, persecution or abuse. The reporting identifies a State Department-linked program overseen in part by Senator Marco Rubio’s office and singles out Andrew Veprek, a senior State Department official, as a key architect of the third-country removals. The Times says the administration paid partner governments and offered diplomatic favors to secure their cooperation and that immigration agents specifically targeted people who held court protections. The investigation frames the practice as refoulement and says it continued despite judges’ orders, prompting calls from Democrats and advocates for congressional investigations and legal accountability.
