Equatorial Guinea

On November 24, 2025, a U.S. deportation flight arrived in Equatorial Guinea carrying nine third-country nationals who had previously been granted withholding of removal or protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The individuals were not informed of their destination; instead, they were told they were being transferred to a different detention facility.

The men were nationals of Georgia, Mauritania, Angola, Ghana, and Eritrea. Upon their arrival in Equatorial Guinea, they were detained at a hotel. Under the country’s immigration law, the detention of foreign nationals must not surpass 60 days, during which authorities must determine whether individuals will be returned to their countries of origin or granted international protection under applicable treaties. Although they explained that they had been granted withholding of removal in the United States, authorities informed them that asylum was not available in Equatorial Guinea. The Equatorial Guinean authorities indicated that they would be returned to their countries of origin unless an alternative country could be found. Once Equatorial Guinea obtained the necessary travel documents, the men were placed on flights to their respective home countries. This included one individual who had managed to submit an asylum application with the support of civil society actors in Equatorial Guinea. As of mid-January, eight  out of the nine men have been refouled to their countries of origin. One of the men, Diadie Camara, who had escaped hereditary slavery in Mauritania, was repatriated there via Morocco on December 25, 2025 and went into hiding, afraid of being found and punished for his escape by the family that enslaved him. Only the transferred Eritrean national remains in Equatorial Guinea, where the civil society organization EG Justice was able to help him file an asylum petition. 

As of mid-January  text and details of the agreement with Equatorial Guinea to accept third country nationals had not been disclosed. The Trump administration concluded a deal through the U.S. Embassy in Malabo in October 2025, following earlier conversations with the vice president of Equatorial Guinea regarding accepting third country nationals in May 2025 that were continued on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York City in September 2025. The deal was made alongside negotiations over tariffs and U.S. company investment in Equatorial Guinea’s gas industry. In exchange for accepting third country nationals deported from the United States, the Trump administration gave the government of Equatorial Guinea $7.5 million dollars of State Department funds that Congress appropriated for humanitarian assistance for refugees.

Because of numerous prosecutions for embezzlement of public funds and corruption in France, the United States, and Brazil, Equatorial Guinea’s Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang was barred from travel to the United States. However, the State Department provided him with a month-long sanctions waiver to allow him to travel to the UN General Assembly and meet with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Landau to discuss the deportation agreement. 

The Vice President’s father has ruled Equatorial Guinea since 1979 as an authoritarian regime that Transparency International currently ranks 173rd out of 180 countries for corruption. The State Department’s 2023 Human Rights Report states that “the president and members of his inner circle continued to amass personal fortunes from the revenues associated with monopolies on all domestic commercial ventures…” and that “corruption at all levels of government was a severe problem” in Equatorial Guinea. 

A civil society organization in Equatorial Guinea expressed concern that people deported there from the United States would suffer torture or inhumane and degrading treatment (potentially at the notorious Black Beach Prison or Oveng Ansen Prison) given the country’s record of “systemic illegal mass arrests, incarceration in squalid conditions, and denial of fundamental due process guarantees.” In a November 10, 2025 letter to Secretary of State Rubio, the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Jeanne Shaheen pointed to the the State Department’s own 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report’s “significant concern” about government officials’ in Equatorial Guinea “complicity in trafficking crimes” and asked “what protections are in place to ensure that third country nationals removed to Equatorial Guinea are themselves not vulnerable to human trafficking, smuggling or human rights abuses.” Equatorial Guinea does not have any law for the granting of asylum or way for foreign nationals to apply for refugee protection and has a history of forcefully deporting Cameroonian people who have fled persecution back to Cameroon.