Migrants who won legal protection in the United States after fleeing persecution over their sexual orientation have been deported to third countries where same-sex relations are criminalised, or LGBT people face documented abuses, according to a Reuters investigation.
A nation that they thought would be a home
"If homosexuality were not taboo in my country, Togo, I do not think I would have left for the United States, where I ended up experiencing some of the worst persecution of my life. All of this can drive someone who lacks the strength to carry on to take their own life, because being persecuted in your own country, fleeing in the hope of finding refuge elsewhere, and then being persecuted there in a different way amounts to double persecution.
From 2024 until today, in 2026, I have done nothing but live in total suffering. My life has no meaning," says Abdou Latifou, who was assaulted and threatened by a mob after he was seen kissing the man he loved.
According to his asylum application, he fled his home in the West African nation of Togo and sought refuge in the United States. Latifou rejoiced last November when a US immigration judge ruled it was not safe to send him home.
“I told myself, ‘From this day on, I’m entering a world where I’m free to live as myself,’” he said.
In June, though, Latifou was placed on a US deportation plane — not back to Togo but to Sierra Leone, a nation where gay men can be sentenced to life in prison under colonial-era laws.
"I think sending us back reflects a hatred toward migrants and also a hatred toward LGBT people, because if you look at those who have been granted withholding of removal, the majority are LGBT people. So, for me, it is hostility toward LGBT people that ICE or the American government does not want to admit openly, even though that is what is happening," he said.
When refuge turned into another deportation
President Donald Trump's administration has deported tens of thousands of people to third countries, enabled by deals with impoverished foreign governments.
Latifou's case is one of 40 documented by Reuters where migrants granted US legal protection after being persecuted for their LGBT status were deported to third countries in Africa that either criminalize same-sex relations or have been described by the State Department as hostile to LGBT people.
The investigation found that 16 of the 40 remain in the countries to which they were deported, with some still detained. Another 16 were eventually returned to their home countries against their will, nine are in hiding in other countries, and one Ghanaian man is no longer in contact with his lawyers or relatives.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement "does not enforce the law based on sexual orientation; that would be illegal,” Chandler Rebel, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, ICE's parent agency, said in a statement. "Third country removals are an essential public safety tool.”
His second term. Since then, his administration has dramatically expanded the practice as part of a wider immigration crackdown.
Preliminary government data shared with Reuters indicates that more than 40,000 people have been deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol to countries other than their own since Trump's return to office. About 900 were sent to African countries.
In a February order, in a case challenging the policy, US District Judge Brian Murphy highlighted the risks facing gay people. The government’s claim that those targeted had not explicitly asked not to be deported to repressive third countries was an “absurdity,” he wrote.
“No person could reasonably be expected to make detailed, prophylactic claims about every country on Earth to which she might have a valid claim against removal.”
On September 29, the Supreme Court put a hold on Murphy's ruling, allowing the administration to continue third-country deportations. The court will hear arguments in December.
When being LGBTQ is still criminalised
The 40 cases documented by Reuters involve deportations to three countries that explicitly criminalise same-sex sexual acts: Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Eswatini.
In three other countries that do not have such laws on the books -- Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- the State Department has previously documented abuses against LGBT people, including “corrective rape” and conversion therapy.
Government spokespeople for the six countries did not respond to requests for comment.
Bridget Crawford, director of law and policy at Immigration Equality, an LGBT advocacy group, said the US has repeatedly granted asylum to LGBT people from these countries. Her group has helped 12 Cameroonians and one person from Congo win asylum in recent years.
"The US cannot take an LGBTQ refugee and simply send them to another country where they will face persecution or torture. And that's true whether that refugee has already won protection in front of a US judge or is still seeking asylum, and the US government is trying to send them to a third country to present their claims. And I think that's what's so disturbing about what we're seeing right now. Many of these destination countries are themselves asylum-producing countries," said Crawford
More than half of the 40, including Latifou, were not eligible for asylum because they did not apply for it in countries they passed through before illegally entering the US. This was disqualifying under Biden-era restrictions that a federal court vacated in May.
The judge in Latifou's case granted a lesser protection, barring the government from deporting him to Togo but allowing his removal elsewhere.
After being flown to Sierra Leone, Latifou said he was held for two weeks in a hotel under police surveillance.
Guards then put him on a flight back to Togo. He arrived with a few items of clothing and $100 to his name.
He travelled to his village to see his mother, but a relative soon warned him that he was not safe and helped him cross the border to Benin. He continued on to Ivory Coast, where he lives with a friend and works as a security guard.
Same-sex relations are not illegal in his new home, but Ivorian activists have reported rising homophobic violence.
Rebel, the DHS spokesman, said that ICE would not be responsible for individuals no longer in ICE custody.
Many of the deportees who spoke to Reuters said they wound up wherever someone would take them.
‘The worst nightmare’
Another deportee, a 44-year-old Mauritanian man who had lived in the United States for more than a decade, was detained by ICE in January and deported to Eswatini, a country he said he had never heard of before.
He said he spent about a month and a half in a maximum-security prison where conditions were harsh, including extreme temperatures, poor food and a lack of hot water.
“I almost lost my life in Mauritania,” he said, describing previous imprisonment, torture and threats after being targeted because of his sexual orientation.
“I told ICE that I cannot be deported to Mauritania,” he said, claiming he warned officials that he could be killed if returned. “They just don't care.”
After agreeing to return to Mauritania, he crossed the border into Senegal, where he is now staying with relatives while trying to find another country willing to accept him.
Senegal recently doubled the maximum penalty for same-sex sexual acts.
For Latifou, the journey from persecution in Togo to the United States and then deportation to another African country has left him struggling to rebuild his life.
“From 2024 until today, in 2026, I have done nothing but live in total suffering,” he said. “My life has no meaning.”
