Gay asylum-seeker deported to Cameroon despite U.S. judge's protection order

A 21-year-old gay woman from Morocco was deported to Cameroon in February 2026 despite an explicit protection order from a U.S. immigration judge. Farah, identified by first name only for her safety, said she was handcuffed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents three days before a scheduled hearing on her release and flown to a country where homosexuality is illegal and punishable by up to three years in prison.

Farah is one of dozens of people the Trump administration has deported to third countries despite legal protection orders from U.S. immigration judges. Immigration lawyers say the practice violates due process rights and international treaty obligations, while the administration says it is applying the law correctly.

Farah fled Morocco after her family discovered she was in a same-sex relationship. She was beaten by family members and threatened with death. With her partner, she obtained visas for Brazil and traveled through six countries to reach the U.S. border in early 2025, where they requested asylum.

From persecution to protection

Once detained in the United States, Farah spent nearly a year in facilities in Arizona and Louisiana. “It was very cold,” she told the Associated Press. “And we only had very thin blankets.” Medical care was inadequate.

In August 2025, an immigration judge denied her asylum application but granted a protection order stating that sending her back to Morocco would endanger her life. Her partner, denied both asylum and protection, was deported.

Deported despite a judge’s order

Three days before a scheduled hearing on her release, ICE agents took Farah into custody and flew her to Cameroon, where she was held in a detention facility in Yaounde. She said ICE offered her a choice: remain in Cameroon or return to her home country—neither safe.

“They asked me if I wanted to stay in Cameroon, and I told them that I can’t stay in Cameroon and risk my life in a place where I would still be endangered,” she said. She was subsequently flown to Morocco, where she now lives in hiding.

“It is hard to live and work with the fear of being tracked once again by my family,” she said. “But there is nothing I can do. I have to work.”

Reflecting on what was done to her, Farah said: “The USA is built on immigration and by immigrant labor, so we’re clearly not all threats. What was done to me was unfair. A normal deportation would have been fair, but to go through so much and lose so much, only to be deported in such a way, is cruel.”

A widening pattern

Farah is far from alone. A detention facility in Yaounde currently holds 15 deportees from various African countries. Eight of the deportees on the first flight in January had protection orders from U.S. immigration judges, said immigration lawyer Alma David with Novo Legal Group, which assists deportees. Another flight brought eight additional people.

The Department of Homeland Security defended the policy. “We are applying the law as written. If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period,” the agency said. It asserted that third-country agreements “ensure due process under the U.S. Constitution.”

David disagreed. “By deporting them to Cameroon, and giving them no opportunity to contest being sent to a country whose government hoped to quietly send them back to the very countries where they face grave danger, the U.S. not only violated their due process rights but our own immigration laws, our obligations under international treaties and even DHS’ own procedures,” she said.

The Trump administration has spent at least $40 million deporting approximately 300 migrants to countries other than their own, according to a report from the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The administration has struck agreements with at least seven African nations: South Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, and Cameroon. Some received millions of dollars in return, according to State Department documents, though details of the Cameroon agreement have not been released.

According to internal administration documents reviewed by the Associated Press, 47 third-country agreements are in various stages of negotiation. The State Department declined to comment on the specifics of its diplomatic communications, and Cameroon’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

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