The Trump administration plans to transport groups of migrants to Libya on US military planes. Another sharp escalation in the deportation program has sparked widespread legal challenges and intense political debate, according to US officials.
The immigrants’ nationality was not immediately clear, but officials who spoke about the conditions of anonymity said they spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the business.
The decision to send Denner to Libya was impressive. The country is plagued by conflict, and human rights groups have called the conditions within the immigration detention centre network “terrifying” and “deplorable.”
Libyan operations are in line with the Trump administration’s efforts to not only stop immigrants from entering the country illegally, but also send a strong message to people within the country that they can deport them to countries that could face brutal circumstances. Before Reuters It has been reported Possibility of US deportation to Libya.
Plans for flights to Libya are held strictly and could still be derailed by logistics, legal or diplomatic obstacles.
The White House declined to comment. The State Department and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The potential use of Libya as a destination comes after the regime was detained in El Salvador, housed in the largest security prison designed for terrorists, by deporting a group of Venezuelans to El Salvador.
President Trump and his aides have labelled those men with violent gang members and cited wartime laws that are rarely used in their expulsion.
The State Department said it was “opposed to trips to Libya due to crime, terrorism, misplaced mines, civil unrest, lurking and armed conflict. The country remains divided after years of civil war after the overthrow of longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The UN-recognized government in Tripoli controls Western Libya, while another government in Benghazi, led by Warlord Khalifa Haftar, controls the east.
The United States has a formal relationship with the Tripoli government only. However, Haftal’s son Saddam was in Washington last week, and I met with several Trump administration officials.. Trump had Friendly deals for his first semester With Haftar, who manages most of Libya’s lucrative oil fields.
Libya, the leading transport for European-bound immigrants, operates numerous detention facilities for refugees and immigrants. Amnesty International branded those sites as “terrifying” and “hell landscapes” Report for 2021found “evidence of sexual violence against men, women and children.” The Global Detention Project says that detained immigrants in Libya endure “physical abuse and torture,” as well as the labor force and even slavery.
Among them Annual Report Regarding human rights practices last year, the State Department cited “harsh and life-threatening” conditions at its detention centre in Libyan detention centers, finding that immigrants at those facilities, including children, “have no access to immigration courts or legitimate procedures.”
Human rights groups say the European government is complicit in such treatment by working with Libya to intercept migrants who are detained on the continent and sent to detention centres.
“I was in those immigrant prisons, but that’s not a place for immigrants,” said Frederick Werry, a Libyan expert at the Carnegie Fund for International Peace. “It’s a scary place to abandon vulnerable people.”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration deported hundreds of people to Panama from countries in the Eastern Hemisphere, including Iran and China. The immigrant, who said he had no idea where they were going, was detained in the hotel for several days before being taken to a camp near the jungle. Some of the immigrants were later released from Panama’s custody.
Around the same time, US officials deported around 200 migrants from countries in the Eastern Hemisphere, including Iran, to Costa Rica. The lawsuit filed against the state argued that deportation and subsequent detention in Costa Rica could “provoke irreparable harm” to a group of children sent to the state.
After the US signed a contract with El Salvador to bring Venezuelan immigrants with him, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he is working to secure a similar agreement with additional countries.
“I will continue to identify other countries that are willing to accept and imprison many gang members so that we can send them,” Rubio told The New York Times.
The planned use of military aircraft for flights to Libya comes after the Department of Defense helped transport immigrants to places such as India, Guatemala and Ecuador.
Court records show that in late March, Pentagon officials flew a group of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, even without the Department of Homeland Security staff on the plane. The flight took off from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to El Salvador, including four Venezuelans. The government’s submission indicated that the Department of Homeland Security did not “instruct” the plane to take off in El Salvador.
Zoran Kanno Yongs Reports of contributions.
