The cases of Jorge Andrés Cubillos Ramírez and Deisy Fidelina Rivera Ortega are an example of how the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) is implementing the new policy of deportations to third countries of the government of President Donald Trump.
Rivera Ortega, who is the wife of an active duty sergeant, with almost three decades in the Army, faces the possibility of being deported to a third country, despite having followed the legal processes to obtain a Green Card, under the ‘Parole in assign’ program – the Apt Permanent Residency process without leaving the country – but was detained in an interview, ABC Recordsdata first reported.
Cubillos Ramírez, of Colombian origin, is one of the specific cases of the more than 15,000 deportations to third countries that the Trump administration has carried out.
He was sent along with 15 other people to the Congo, after refusing deportation to Mexico, he told Telemundo. He had been living in the United States for eight years, where a judge was pending a ruling on his asylum case.
According to a recent report from the Migration Protection Institute, the second Trump administration resumes the strategy it implemented during the Republican’s first term in office, using deportations to third countries as a way to put pressure on people who do not wish to leave the country voluntarily.
“The intention and objective of these agreements is not only to increase deportations, but also to create more fear among the community, in order to make more of them consider deporting themselves,” said Ariel Ruiz Soto, senior policy analyst at the Migration Protection Institute and author of the report, in the “El Diario Sin Límites” podcast of this publishing house.
He added that this can even affect people who are carrying out any immigration process. This is the case of Deisy Fidelina Rivera Ortega.
“[El gobierno de Trump busca] power that the majority of people who, for example, are carrying out an immigration process decide not to continue it, because they are given this type of saying, if you do not agree to return to Mexico we will send you to Ecuador, or if you do not return to Mexico we will send you to Uzbekistan or some other country,” said Ruiz Soto.
What is a deportation to a third country?
There are four types of deportations to a third country, according to the Migration Protection Institute: 1) cooperation agreements with countries considered safe for asylum requests; 2) agreements called “bridge” for deportation, that is, a country accepts immigrants that it will then send to their nation of origin or even to another country; 3) incarceration strategies, such as the case of El Salvador, where more than 200 Venezuelans were sent, and 4) agreements considered hybrid, where the entry of immigrants who will not receive any promise of protection is allowed, as is the case in Mexico with people from Cuba or Venezuela.
There are at least 10 agreements that do not have classification: Antigua and Bermuda, Cameroon, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Guaya, Kosovo, Libya, Palau, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Lucia, the report adds.
In total, the Trump administration has concluded 27 agreements, but is seeking another 54, confirmed Soto Ruiz, who pointed out that the classification of the agreements was made based on the information available.
“It should be emphasized that we do not know some details and these types of agreements may change in the future, but there are four types of agreements,” he explained.
How many immigrants have been deported to countries other than their own?
The report indicates that there is limited information from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), on which ICE depends, which prevents “determining the total number of deportations carried out.”
“Given that MPI estimates that approximately 15,000 deportations have been carried out to third countries, these represent only a fraction of the total deportations during Trump’s second term,” it states. “The majority, to Mexico, have been carried out with much less international attention than deportations to countries in Asia and Africa.”
It highlights that deportations to Asia and Africa are significantly more expensive, but the analysis insists that the Trump administration’s objective is to use these deportations to third countries to instill fear.
“The government appears to be using deportation agreements with third countries to instill fear among undocumented immigrants, contributing to the climate of fear systematically created through high-visibility immigration enforcement operations, massive increases in immigration detention, and other actions,” it states. “Threatening to deport people to a country where they have no ties or command of the local language contributes to achieving the goal of mass deportations.”
