As part of a consortium of 26 media outlets coordinated by Forbidden Stories, FRANCE 24 and RFI spent seven months investigating the secret deals struck between the administration of US President Donald Trump and several African countries. These so-called “third countries” have agreed to host undocumented migrants detained by ICE and deported from the US.
In the US, investigating the brutal methods of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can expose journalists to legal action, detention and even deportation.
On June 14, 2025, Salvadoran reporter Mario Guevara experienced those risks firsthand. Guevara was detained while covering a protest against ICE in Atlanta, Georgia, as part of broader demonstrations against US President Donald Trump. He was deported to El Salvador four months later.
To continue and to defend this crucial work, the Forbidden Stories network of journalists launched a wide-reaching investigation called “The Deportation Project: Revelations about the Trump administration’s mass deportations”.
More than a hundred interviews, 72 journalists, 15 countries
Since January 2025, more than 25,400 foreigners have been deported from the US to countries that most of them have never set foot in before. Most of them had been granted legal protections preventing them from being sent back to their home countries, where they were deemed at risk of persecution.
To get around this measure, the Trump administration struck deals with 35 “third countries” who would agree to receive these deportees. What these countries received in return remains largely unclear – the negotiations leading up to them were largely secret.
To dig deeper, a network of 72 journalists from 26 outlets across 15 countries spent six months gathering more than a hundred eyewitness accounts, including 33 interviews with migrants who were deported under the Trump administration’s policies.
Across Africa
Out of the dozens of agreements signed by Washington, 12 were struck with African countries. This investigation reveals how these largely opaque negotiations were conducted to facilitate these deportations.
From Ghana to Cameroon to Eswatini, our journalists spent months following the stories of people abandoned in countries that were utterly unknown to them.
Available from Monday on FRANCE 24
‘Waiting for us to crack’: In Cameroon, the victims of Trump’s deportations face uncertain fates
For FRANCE 24’s website, David Rich investigates the fate of migrants deported to Cameroon and shines a light on the secret deal struck between Washington and Yaounde.
Read more‘Waiting for us to crack’: In Cameroon, the victims of Trump’s deportations face uncertain fates
Reporters +: 'ICE, Trump and Africa - Secret deals, broken lives'
In this documentary, Karina Chabour follows in the footsteps of people deported to Ghana and Eswatini. Some of those people lived in the US for decades – they worked there, paid their taxes, started families and built their lives. Now, these newly stateless people risk detention, ill-treatment or being sent back to their home countries, where their lives would once again be in danger.
Read moreICE, Trump and Africa: Secret deals, broken lives
Third-country removals: Trump’s deportation policy by the numbers
Lise Kiennemann, a journalist with FRANCE 24’s Observers team, worked alongside Forbidden Stories and Evident Media to document these often-secret transfers. An interactive map shows the deportation of more than 25,000 people and the 35 countries that have signed agreements with Washington.
Read moreThird-country removals: Trump’s deportation policy by the numbers
Scrollytelling: Flight to Ghana - Expelled From the US to a Country They’d Never Been to
Drawing together video and audio testimonies, a graphic “scrollytelling” by Lise Kiennemann and Léa Peruchon (Forbidden Stories) maps the journey of people deported to Ghana on the flight of November 6, 2025.
Coming soon.
‘I had never heard of Eswatini’: Deported to a country that rejects them
In the heart of the last absolute monarchy on the African continent, a discreet deal with the US on the reception of 160 migrants convicted in US courts unleashed unprecedented protests. FRANCE 24’s Southern African correspondent Caroline Dumay sheds light on the rising tensions.
Coming soon.
Donald Trump’s pressure geopolitics
A series of reports and analysis from RFI’s Florence Morice.
Coming soon.
