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<\/p>\nTyler McBrien is the managing editor of Lawfare.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
More than 25,000<\/span> people have had their lives upended and been forced into unfamiliar cultures, governments, and legal systems when the Department of Homeland Security deported them to so-called \u201cthird countries,\u201d places where immigrants previously living in the United States have no connections and few rights \u2014 and where a deportation business booming under the second Trump administration finds its murky endpoints.<\/p>\n \u201cThe point is to scare people,\u201d said one Trump administration official, according to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee minority report<\/a>. \u201cWith countries like Palau or Eswatini, the point is that the Administration can threaten people that they will literally be dropped in the middle of nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n As is the case for many tools of its cruelty, the Trump administration did not invent third-country removals \u2014 it refashioned them to serve its own excesses. In the past, the U.S. used the obscure administrative compromise for people who could prove they would face persecution or harm if returned to their home country yet did not meet other requirements for asylum. The U.S. had to meet humanitarian and legal obligations, such as ensuring third countries would not turn around and deport migrants right back to their home countries<\/a>. It was a last-resort tool that still left people displaced from their homes and communities in service of the country\u2019s arcane immigration laws. But the current Trump administration\u2019s policy, premised on agreements<\/a> with at least 35 countries, has been anything but humane.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nor has it been particularly legal. After the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the third-country deportation scheme, DHS scheduled a flight<\/a> to deport migrants involved in a class-action lawsuit challenging the policy to Burundi, Rwanda, and the Central African Republic. Despite a successful emergency motion<\/a> their lawyers filed last week, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement jet flew to two African countries that hold third-country removal agreements, according to the American Prospect<\/a>. It is not yet clear who was on the plane or whether ICE carried out third-country removals in violation of a federal court order, and the Trump administration is now aiming to take the legal fight<\/a> to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n The saga illustrates the Trump administration\u2019s proclivity for obfuscation, secret contracts, nondisclosure, and dealmaking of the backroom variety. Whether digitally disappearing<\/a> people from ICE\u2019s online detainee locator tool last week, or inking multimillion-dollar sole-source contracts with inexperienced companies<\/a> of questionable provenance<\/a>, the Trump administration has pursued its immigration goals under the cover of darkness, often justifying the secrecy with invocations of national security, all while attempting to shield itself from public scrutiny and accountability in the process.<\/p>\n \u201cDeportation, Inc.: The Rise of the Immigration Enforcement Economy,\u201d an ongoing investigative video series<\/a> from Lawfare and SITU Research, in partnership with The Intercept, examines how U.S. immigration enforcement has evolved into a multibillion-dollar industry shaped by private profit and political power \u2014 where contracts, capital flows, and institutional incentives increasingly govern detention, deportation, and surveillance<\/a>. The project joins other efforts to shed light on the often invisible economy of immigration enforcement, including the Berkeley Human Rights Center, Human Rights First, Third Country Deportation Watch, and others.<\/p>\n \n<\/p>\n