Women Who Fled Iran Face Deportation to Central African Republic, Lawyers Say

A deportation flight carrying roughly two dozen migrants landed Friday in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, under a newly established third-country deportation agreement between the Trump administration and the CAR government. Among those deported was at least one Iranian pro-democracy activist who had been granted 'withholding of removal' by a U.S. immigration judge — a legal protection requiring a court finding that the individual faces more than a 50% likelihood of persecution or torture if returned to their home country. Three Iranian women were originally slated for the flight, but two received emergency court orders temporarily halting their removal while judges reviewed the legality of the deportations; an elderly Syrian man also received a last-minute court order blocking his removal. The deportees, who also include nationals from Afghanistan, Armenia, Jordan, Georgia, and Turkey, will be housed in apartments in Bangui and are not expected to be immediately repatriated to their home countries, though lawyers warn the arrangement may ultimately funnel them back to the countries they fled. The CAR, which has endured repeated coups and armed conflict since independence in 1960, is one of the poorest countries in the world, with one in three people living on less than $2 a day, and carries the State Department's highest-level travel warning. Critics have also flagged that the CAR's security apparatus is heavily influenced by Russian paramilitary forces, raising particular concerns for Iranian nationals given Russia's close ties with Tehran. The International Organization for Migration, which received $85 million in U.S. funding this year for CAR operations, said it would provide voluntary post-arrival humanitarian assistance but stressed it played no role in the removals themselves.