The US has deported thousands to third countries. This must stop | James A Goldston and Natasha Arnpriester

Jose Yugar-Cruz spent 17 months in a county jail in Muscatine, Iowa, without having committed a crime. He entered the United States legally from Bolivia in July 2024 and requested asylum after approaching authorities. A US immigration judge found he had been tortured in Bolivia, would likely face torture again if returned, and barred his removal to Bolivia. The government did not appeal, yet he was not released for nearly a year while ICE searched for another place to send him. After a new Third-Country Removal Agreement with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, ICE scheduled him for an April charter flight to Kinshasa. He was redetained at a check-in appointment, and a federal judge later ruled he could not block future deportation to the DRC. He said he has no family there, does not speak the language, and feels worthless. The charter flights to the DRC involve chained restraints and sometimes straitjackets, and conditions in nearby detention sites can be unsafe.

"Originally from Bolivia, he entered the United States legally at the Arizona border in July 2024, affirmatively approached authorities, and requested asylum. Six months later, a US immigration judge found he had been tortured in Bolivia, would probably face torture again if returned, and barred his removal to his home country. The government did not appeal. Yugar-Cruz was not released for almost a year. Instead, ICE spent months searching unsuccessfully for somewhere else to send him."

"But after the United States negotiated a new Third-Country Removal Agreement with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a country beset by conflict and corruption, ICE placed Yugar-Cruz on the manifest for an April charter flight to Kinshasa. On 8 April, he was redetained at a check-in appointment with ICE. Although a temporary stay kept him off that flight, a federal judge later ruled he could not block a future deportation to the DRC, risking Yugar-Cruz's removal to a country he has never set foot in."

"“I don't know [it], I have no family there, I don't speak their language, he said. I feel like a person who has no value.” The flight Yugar-Cruz narrowly missed carried 15 South Americans to DRC. They arrived in chains, a routine feature of these flights, where passengers are held in handcuffs, waist chains, leg irons and sometimes straitjackets."

"“No country can guarantee safety if it lacks functioning asylum laws, honest courts, impartial officials” Had Yugar-Cruz been onboard, he would now be among those held in a rundown hotel near the airport, where the water shuts off for days, rodents move through the rooms and mosquitoes are inescapable. The US-DRC arrangement is the latest deal outsourcing America's protection obligations to countries whose own asylum systems are collapsing."

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