By Clement Bonnerot
DAKAR, April 22 (Reuters) – A Colombian woman deported from the United States to the Democratic Republic of Congo under a new agreement with the Trump administration said she was under pressure to return to Colombia despite the dangers she would face there.
The 29-year-old woman, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals from Congolese and Colombian authorities, is part of an initial group of 15 migrants from South America who were flown to the Central African nation last week.
The U.S. administration has struck several third-country deportation agreements with African nations to further President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration. Congo is one of the most unstable, with more than seven million people internally displaced by conflict and more than a million refugees abroad.
The woman and two others in the group from Colombia, Peru and Ecuador told Reuters that, since arriving in the country, they had been offered no credible option but to return home.
“We feel pressured to agree to go back to our country, regardless of the risks,” she said.
DEPORTEES SAY US JUDGES GAVE THEM LEGAL PROTECTIONS
She fled Colombia in January 2024 because she was kidnapped and tortured by the FARC rebel group and was seriously abused by her ex-husband who is a police officer, she wrote in her application for asylum in the United States, which Reuters has seen.
A U.S. immigration judge ruled in May 2025 that she was more likely than not to be tortured again if she were forced back home, U.S. court records reviewed by Reuters showed.
The other two migrants said they were also granted legal protection by U.S. judges, accounts that Reuters was not able to confirm independently.
Asked to comment on the accounts and the agreement with Congo, which has not been made public, a State Department spokesperson said implementing the Trump administration’s immigration policies was a top priority.
“We remain unwavering in our commitment to end illegal and mass immigration and bolster America’s border security,” the spokesperson said, adding that it did not communicate on the details of their diplomatic communications with other governments.
The Congolese government has said the agreement with Washington is “strictly transitional, temporary and time-limited”. Neither it, nor the Colombian foreign ministry, immediately responded to requests for comment.
Alma David, a U.S.-based lawyer representing one of the migrants in Congo, said the process put deportees at risk despite protections previously granted in the United States, adding that several were deported without their passports.
“The goal is clear: put people in a place so unfamiliar that they give up and agree to return home, despite the immense risk they face there,” she said.
DETAILS OF US-CONGO DEPORTATION AGREEMENT ARE NOT PUBLIC
U.S. and Congolese officials have not said how many migrants will be sent to Congo, nor what Congo gets from the agreement, which was negotiated as Washington sought to implement a regional peace deal and secure access to critical minerals.
A Reuters journalist seeking to meet the migrants inside the hotel in the Congolese capital Kinshasa where they are being housed was turned away, and the migrants have been prevented from leaving.
The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM) offers assistance with repatriation. A spokesperson said it only did so if someone chooses it.
Two of the three deportees interviewed by Reuters said IOM staff and Congolese officials told them they risked losing accommodation and support after seven days if they refused repatriation. One said IOM staff recommended that she not apply for asylum in Congo because it was dangerous. Another said Congolese authorities did not say asylum locally was an option.
The IOM said it did not discourage asylum applications and had not done so with these arrivals, noting that it used translators and fed concerns back to relevant authorities.
(Reporting by Clement Bonnerot; Editing by Robbie Corey-Boulet and Philippa Fletcher)
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