Washington's Third-Country Detour

When American administrative machinery decides to clear its immigration dockets, procedural logic is rarely allowed to stand in the way. A US judge recently determined that a young Afghan man could not be returned to Kabul, citing well-founded fears of Taliban persecution linked to his family's service alongside American forces. The executive branch responded with a legalistic maneuver, dispatching him on a charter flight to the Central African Republic instead.

The aircraft, which touched down in the capital city of Bangui, carried a distinctly international manifest. According to advocacy organisations including AfghanEvac, Human Rights First, and the American Civil Liberties Union, the deportees included twelve Afghans and eight Iranians, as well as individuals from Nepal and Nicaragua. This marked the third deportation flight organized by the Trump administration to the Central African Republic this year, executed under quiet bilateral arrangements designed to offshore enforcement obligations to third nations.

For the Afghan deportee, identified in court documents as Khalil, the transfer follows a history of family sacrifice for the American war effort. One of his brothers, a US-trained pilot, was murdered by the Taliban. Another served in the Afghan National Army and currently resides in the United States, while his father and sister also worked alongside American forces. These details persuaded a federal judge to bar his removal to Afghanistan.

Sending deportees to a third country with which they have no prior ties solves a domestic legal bottleneck, yet it creates an obvious paradox. The US Department of State maintains a strict warning against all travel to the Central African Republic for American citizens, pointing to risks of violent unrest, armed crime, kidnapping, and terrorism.

By transferring non-citizens to volatile third countries, federal authorities can mark cases as resolved without violating specific judicial bans on returning individuals to their country of origin. Whether this strategy serves long-term diplomatic interests or simply relocates administrative burdens to Africa remains a question the policy's architects seem in no rush to answer.

Written by Christiane Hofreiter christiane.hofreiter@alpineweekly.com