Lawyers for 5 men deported to an African prison accuse Trump's program of denying them due process

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Five men deported by the United States to Eswatini in July have been held in a maximum-security prison in the African nation for seven weeks without charge or explanation and with no access to legal counsel, their lawyers said Tuesday.

They accused the Trump administration's third-country deportation program of denying their clients due process.

The New York-based Legal Aid Society said that it was representing one of the men, Jamaican national Orville Etoria, and that he had been “inexplicably and illegally” sent to Eswatini when his home country was willing to accept him back.

That contradicted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which said when it deported the five men with criminal records that they were being sent to Eswatini because their home countries refused to take them. Jamaica's foreign minister has also said that the Caribbean country didn't refuse to take back deportees.

Etoria was the first of at least 20 deportees sent by the U.S. to various African nations in the last two months to be identified publicly.

The deportations are part of the Trump administration’s expanding third-country program to send migrants to countries in Africa that they have no ties with to get them off U.S. soil.

Since July, the U.S. has deported migrants to South Sudan, Eswatini and Rwanda, while a fourth African nation, Uganda, says it has agreed to a deal in principle with the U.S. to accept deportees.

Washington has said it wants to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose case has been a flashpoint over U.S. President Donald Trump's hard-line immigration policies, to Uganda after he was wrongly deported to his native El Salvador in March.

Etoria served a 25-year prison sentence and was granted parole in 2021, the Legal Aid Society said, but was now being held in Eswatini's main maximum-security prison for an undetermined period of time despite completing that sentence.

The U.S. Homeland Security Department said that he was convicted of murder. The agency posted on X in reference to a New York Times report on Estoria, saying that it “will continue enforcing the law at full speed — without apology.”

It didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

The Legal Aid Society said that an Eswatini lawyer acting on behalf of all five men being held in prison there has been repeatedly denied access to them by prison officials since they arrived in the tiny southern African nation bordering South Africa in mid-July.

The other four men are citizens of Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen.

A separate lawyer representing the two men from Laos and Vietnam said that his clients also served their criminal sentences in the U.S. and had “been released into the community.”

"Then, without warning and explanation from either the U.S. or Eswatini governments, they were arbitrarily arrested and sent to a country to which they have never ever been," the lawyer, Tin Thanh Nguyen, said in a statement. “They are now being punished indefinitely for a sentence they already served.”

He said that the U.S. government was “orchestrating secretive third-country transfers with no meaningful legal process, resulting in indefinite detention.”

U.S. Homeland Security said those two men had been convicted of charges including child rape and second-degree murder.

A third lawyer, Alma David, said that she represented the two men from Yemen and Cuba who are also being held in the same prison and denied access to lawyers. She said she had been told by the head of the Eswatini prison that only the U.S. Embassy could grant access to the men.

“Since when does the U.S. Embassy have jurisdiction over Eswatini’s national prisons?” she said in a statement, adding the men weren't told a reason for their detention, and "no lawyer has been permitted to visit them.” David said all five were being held at U.S. taxpayers' expense.

The deportation deals the U.S. has struck in Africa have been largely secretive, and with countries with questionable rights records.

Authorities in South Sudan have given little information on where eight men sent there in early July are being held or what their fate might be. They were also described by U.S. authorities as dangerous criminals from South Sudan, Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar and Vietnam.

The five men in Eswatini are being held at the Matsapha Correctional Complex. It's the same prison where Eswatini, which is ruled by a king as Africa's last absolute monarchy, has imprisoned pro-democracy campaigners amid reports of abuse that includes beatings and the denial of food to inmates.

Eswatini authorities said when the five men arrived that they were being held in solitary confinement.

Another seven migrants were deported by the U.S. to Rwanda in mid-August, Rwandan authorities said. They didn't say where they are being held or give any information on their identities.

The deportations to Rwanda were kept secret at the time and only announced last week.

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

A member of Eswatin Pro-democracy activists, holds a placard at they protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

A leader of Eswatin Pro-democracy activists, speaks during their protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Pro-democracy activists protest outside the U.S. embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

FILE - The Matsapha Correctional Complex is seen in Matsapha, near Mbabane, Eswatini, on Thursday, July 17, 2025. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - Matsapha Correctional Complex is seen in Matsapha, near Mbabane, Eswatini, Thursday July 17, 2025. (AP Photo, File)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Police renewed their search Monday for the gunman who killed two Brown University students and wounded nine others, a day after they released a person of interest after determining the evidence pointed "in a different direction.”

Officials announced the man's release at news conference late Sunday, marking a setback in the investigation of Saturday's attack on the Ivy League school's campus and adding to mounting questions about the attack and investigation, including a lack of video evidence and whether the focus on the person of interest might have given the killer more time to escape justice.

Providence residents and students were relieved early Sunday when officials announced they had detained a man at a Rhode Island hotel in connection with the attack and lifted a lockdown. But that relief was short-lived, as Mayor Brett Smiley said hours later that investigators didn't know whether the gunman was still in the area.

“We know that this is likely to cause fresh anxiety,” he said.

The release of the person of interest left law enforcement without a known suspect, with officials pledging to redouble their efforts by asking neighborhood residents and businesses for video surveillance that might help identify the attacker.

“We have a murderer out there,” Attorney General Peter Neronha said.

Authorities said Sunday that one of the reasons they lacked video of the shooter was because Brown's engineering building doesn't have many cameras.

The mayor said there have been no credible threats of further violence since the shooting, and the city's schools were open Monday.

On Sunday morning, officials took into custody a person of interest at a Hampton Inn in Coventry, Rhode Island, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Providence. Two people familiar with the matter identified that individual as a 24-year-old man from Wisconsin, though authorities never released his name.

“I’ve been around long enough to know that sometimes you head in one direction and then you have to regroup and go in another, and that’s exactly what has happened over the last 24 hours or so,” Neronha said.

He said there was some evidence that pointed to the man authorities detained, but “that evidence needed to be corroborated and confirmed. And over the last 24 hours leading into just very, very recently, that evidence now points in a different direction.”

Authorities believe they are looking for a person shown in a small, short clip of video footage walking away, the mayor said. The person's back is to the camera.

“Right now, we don't have any evidence to suggest that it was more than that individual,” Smiley said Monday on ABC's “Good Morning America.”

Despite an enhanced police presence at Brown, officials are not recommending another shelter-in-place order like the one that followed the Saturday afternoon shooting, when hundreds of officers searched for the attacker and urged students and staff to remain indoors.

The shooting occurred as final exams were underway.

The gunman opened fire inside a classroom in the engineering building, getting off more than 40 rounds from a 9 mm handgun, a law enforcement official told AP. Two handguns were recovered when the person of interest was taken into custody and authorities also found two loaded 30-round magazines, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity.

Investigators were not immediately sure how the shooter got inside the first-floor classroom in a seven-story complex that houses the School of Engineering and physics department.

The attack set off hours of chaos on campus and in the surrounding neighborhoods, as hundreds of officers searched for the shooter. One video showed students in a library shaking and wincing as they heard loud bangs just before police entered the room to clear the building.

During the lockdown, which wasn't lifted until Sunday, after the person of interest was taken into custody, many students remained barricaded in rooms while others hid behind furniture and bookshelves as police searched for the shooter.

One of the nine wounded students has been released from the hospital, Paxson said Sunday. Seven others were in critical but stable condition, and one was in critical condition.

On Sunday evening, city leaders, residents and others gathered at a park to honor the victims. The event originally was scheduled as a Christmas tree and Hanukkah menorah lighting.

Smiley said he visited some wounded students and was inspired by their courage, hope and gratitude. “The resilience that these survivors showed and shared with me, is frankly pretty overwhelming,” he said.

Brown, the seventh-oldest higher education institution in the U.S., is one of the nation’s most prestigious colleges, with roughly 7,300 undergraduates and more than 3,000 graduate students. The school canceled all remaining classes and exams for the semester.

Contributing were Associated Press journalists Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire; Jennifer McDermott in Providence; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and Alanna Durkin Richer, Mike Balsamo and Eric Tucker in Washington

A police vehicle is parked at an intersection near crime scene tape at Brown University, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., following a Saturday shooting at the university. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

A bouquet of flowers rests on snow, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, on the campus of Brown University not far from where a shooting took place, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Passers-by walk past crime scene tape at an entrance to Brown University, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., following the Saturday, Dec. 13, shooting at the university. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Providence and Brown University community members gather during a vigil at Lippitt Memorial Park, a day after a shooting occurred on Brown University campus. Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)

People hold candles during a vigil, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., for those injured or killed during the Saturday shooting on Brown University campus. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)