US deports Iranian pro-democracy activist to Central African Republic

An Iranian pro-democracy activist who had won some form of protection in U.S. immigration court was flown out of Louisiana and landed in the Central African Republic after a stop in Accra, Ghana, a transfer her lawyer called “super dangerous.” The case has become a test of how far the United States can push third-country deportation deals when people cannot be sent directly back to their home countries.

The activist was among three Iranian women that the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund said were at risk of deportation. One was a Christian convert and another was a pro-democracy activist. By the time the flight reached Bangui, only the activist was aboard, though her lawyer said the other women could still be sent later. Both women had been detained after arriving in the United States in November 2024.

The deportation landed in a country with no obvious connection to the activist, and where her lawyer said she had no support network. It also placed her in a place that U.S. officials themselves have described as chronically unstable, with violence and poverty deepening the stakes for anyone removed there. The legal question is not only whether the removal was permitted, but what safeguards exist when the destination is neither the person’s home country nor a place where they have ties or lawful status.

The Central African Republic move fits a broader Trump administration practice of sending migrants to third countries when direct return is blocked. Washington has already sent third-country deportees to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Equatorial Guinea under agreements that critics say are opaque. Senate Democrats have said those deals have cost tens of millions of dollars, adding a budgetary argument to the civil-liberties fight.

The arrangement with Bangui had been moving for weeks. Central African officials discussed it at a May 18 meeting in Bangui with a U.S. delegation led by Christian Jové Ehrhardt, the deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. That meeting helped advance a deal that now sits at the center of a larger policy dispute over asylum, diplomatic leverage and the treatment of people already judged by U.S. immigration judges to face serious risk if returned to Iran.