US deportees to Sierra Leone face persecution fears back home

Asylum seekers deported by the US to Sierra Leone risk being sent back to their home countries, where they face persecution, according to one of their lawyers and documents seen by The Associated Press, despite prior US court orders barring their deportation to those countries.

About a dozen people deported from the US arrived in Sierra Leone, the second deportation flight to the country after nine West African migrants landed there last month, Erica Reilly, an attorney representing one of the migrants, said.

Sierra Leone is one of at least nine other African nations that the US has struck third-country deportation deals. Authorities have said they are only taking in citizens of West African countries. Several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have also reached similar agreements with the US.

A briefing pamphlet that lawyers said was distributed to the migrants upon their arrival in the capital, Freetown, reads that the Government and contractors are working to “return you home as quickly and safely as possible.”