Cameroon

An agreement was reached through a series of diplomatic notes in December 2025, which became available on the State Department website in June 2026 . According to the notes, “certain third-country nationals” can be sent from the United States to Cameroon,” Cameroon assures “it would treat any third-country nationals transferred from the United States to Cameroon in a manner that is in accordance with its international legal obligations,” including non-refoulement, and that “the United States intends to provide support for assisted voluntary return programs” to facilitate the repatriation from Cameroon of third country nationals deported there from the United States.

Deportation of third country nationals to Cameroon under this agreement starkly reveals how such agreements undermine refugee protection and how assurances to abide by international treaties are inadequate to protect deportees.  On January 15, 2026, five men and four women from Angola, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Morocco, and Zimbabwe, along with one stateless individual—were forcibly transferred from the United States to Cameroon. Immigration judges in the United States had found that eight of the nine individuals would likely face persecution or torture if removed to their home countries and granted them withholding of removal or protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). On February 16, a second flight arrived with eight additional people—two women and six men from Sierra Leone, Senegal, the DRC, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Seven had been granted withholding of removal and one had been granted deferral of removal under CAT. On April 29, a third flight arrived with nine additional people—one woman from Ghana, one from Angola, and three from Ethiopia, and two men from Ghana and one from the Republic of Congo. Among those whom the U.S. government has forcibly transferred to Cameroon are at least four LGBTQ+ individuals with withholding of removal as well as people fleeing political-based persecution.  On May 27, 2026, five men from Ethiopia, two men from Zimbabwe, two women from Ethiopia, and one woman from Ethiopia were forcibly transferred to Cameroon. All had withholding of removal or protections due to the Convention Against Torture. 

Some individuals were given notice that they would be deported to Cameroon and, when they expressed fear, were not provided a fear interview, including a woman who had been told she would receive one. Others were not informed they were being deported to Cameroon until they were already in the air en route to Cameroon. One individual was told in the airplane hangar that he would be deported to Ghana as a third country, but at the last minute officials informed him it would instead be Cameroon. When he expressed fear of being deported there, officers placed him in a full-body restraint (the WRAP). All the other individuals were handcuffed and shackled on that flight.  

The individuals are currently detained at a government-owned facility in Yaoundé guarded by plainclothes security personnel. The transferred individuals have had contact mostly with Cameroonian officials and reportedly officials from the International Organization for Migration who also referred them to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Some told reporters they felt intense pressure to agree to repatriation. Two women transferred to Cameroon on the first flight agreed to return to Morocco. One of them had fled Morocco—where LGBTQ+ people are criminalized—after her family beat and threatened to kill her because she is gay. Fearing that her life was at risk in Cameroon, she returned to Morocco and is currently living in hiding. Three other LGBTQ+ individuals with withholding of removal remain detained in Cameroon, including two women from Ghana and a man from Kenya. They have been pressured to repatriate to their countries of origin as well, where they would be faced with persecution on the basis of their sexual orientation. They have little access to food, clothing, and basic supplies. The forced transfers of LGBTQ+ people to Cameroon—where LGBTQ+ people are also criminalized and face pervasive violence—and their onward return to the countries where they face persecution and from which they were granted legal protections raises serious concerns about both direct and chain refoulement.

Until the end of January, attorneys attempting to meet with the individuals to provide legal counsel were denied access to the facility. In mid-February, Barrister Joseph Fru, a Cameroonian human rights lawyer, met with some of the detained people  but then was arrested, along with several journalists attempting to document conditions and talk with the detained individuals. Although he and the journalists were later released, police confiscated the journalists’ equipment—including cameras, laptops, and phones—and did not return it for several days, and only after intervention by Barrister Fru.

The forced transfers to Cameroon are part of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) broader practice of deporting individuals with final orders of removal, particularly those granted withholding of removal or CAT protection, to third countries. In these cases, DHS sends people to third countries that were never identified as potential destinations during their immigration proceedings and without meaningful prior notice or an opportunity for the individuals to present a fear claim specific to the third country. This practice denies people due process and creates the risk that they will be sent to persecution and torture. It violates the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act, Constitutional due process protections, and international treaty obligations codified in U.S. law including the prohibition on refoulement. This practice was challenged before a U.S. federal district court in Massachusetts in D.V.D. v. DHS, leading the court to enjoin third country removals of people with final orders without notice or opportunity to raise a fear claim, but the Supreme Court stayed the injunction in June 2025 pending a decision on the merits. On February 25, 2026, the same federal district court declared unlawful and set aside DHS’s third-country removal policy, holding that DHS cannot deport individuals under final removal orders to countries not designated in their removal proceedings without providing meaningful notice and a genuine opportunity to seek protection from persecution or torture. The court rejected DHS’s position that it could transfer people to “so-called ‘third countries’” so long as it lacked specific prior knowledge that harm awaited them, explaining pointedly: “It is not fine, nor is it legal.” The Trump administration has appealed and the decision is stayed while litigation in the case continues.

Longstanding conditions in Cameroon raise serious concerns about the safety of individuals deported there from the United States, with independent human rights organizations repeatedly warning against removals to the country. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch documented that Cameroonian authorities have subjected deportees, including asylum seekers previously removed from the United States, to arbitrary detention, torture, and other forms of serious harm, often based solely on perceived political affiliation or generalized suspicion. These risks are especially acute in the context of Cameroon’s ongoing internal conflicts, including the Anglophone crisis in the North-West and South-West regions, where security forces and armed groups have committed widespread abuses against civilians. The U.S. Department of State has likewise reported credible accounts of unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and harsh prison conditions across the country. LGBTQ+ people suffer attacks, arrests, detention, and other violence on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, including by government officials. 

In the context of bilateral relations between the two countries, on August 5, 2025, the Trump administration terminated Temporary Protected Status for nearly 5,000 Cameroonians, which is currently being challenged in Casa v. Noem. In late 2025, the U.S. announced a plan to provide financial support for Cameroon’s public health system, which may have influenced negotiations over the third country national deportation agreement. Despite Cameroon agreeing to accept third country nationals, however, in January 2026, the Trump administration halted immigrant visa processing for nationals of 75 countries, including Cameroon, with limited exceptions for student and other short-term nonimmigrant visas.