Lao man sent to Eswatini freed after 14 months
A Laotian man deported by the United States to Eswatini under the Trump administration's third-country deportation programme was released from a maximum-security prison after more than a year in detention, his lawyer said.
Phone Chomsavanh was among five immigrants sent to Eswatini in July 2025, despite having no ties to the African country. He had been held at the Matsapha Correctional Complex near Eswatini's administrative capital, Mbabane, after being deported there by the US.
Chomsavanh's US-based lawyer, Tin Thanh Nguyen, said in a statement that his client was informed only shortly before a military cargo plane carrying him and the other deportees landed in Eswatini that he was being sent there.
Chomsavanh has now left Eswatini and landed in Johannesburg, from where he was travelling to Laos, Nguyen said in separate messages to The Associated Press.
"He had already served his time. Instead they put him on a plane without telling him where it was headed and left him in a prison in a country he had never heard of, where nobody ever accused him of anything," Nguyen said. He added that Chomsavanh had been held for more than a year without notice, a hearing or an opportunity to challenge his transfer.
An Eswatini government spokesperson did not immediately acknowledge Chomsavanh's release.
Chomsavanh and the four other immigrants sent to Eswatini had been convicted of serious crimes in the US but had completed their sentences before being deported, according to AP.
Chomsavanh was born in a refugee camp in Thailand after his parents fled Laos. His family later moved to the United States when he was 7, his lawyer said.
Advocacy groups Human Rights First and Refugees International estimate that around 500 immigrants have been deported by the US to African countries other than their countries of origin since the third-country deportation programme began last year.
Around a dozen African countries have accepted such deportees, with some receiving millions of dollars in payments. Under an agreement between the US and Eswatini, the Trump administration paid the country USD 5.1 million to accept deportees. Eswatini has received around 30 deportees so far, according to the report.
The programme has faced legal challenges in the US and in some countries receiving the deportees. Rights groups and lawyers have criticised the practice of holding immigrants in countries where they have no ties and have not been charged with crimes.
The Trump administration has defended the policy as a means of swiftly removing immigrants with final deportation orders when their home countries may not immediately accept them.
Last month, a US appeals court upheld a judge's decision to halt the programme, ruling that immigrants facing removal must have an opportunity to challenge deportation to a third country if they fear persecution or torture there.
The US Supreme Court last week temporarily allowed the administration to continue swiftly removing immigrants to third countries. The court is scheduled to hear arguments in the case in December.
The programme has largely been carried out with limited public information about the number of people deported, the countries receiving them and the conditions in which they are held.
Sourced through PTI
