FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — Asylum seekers deported by the U.S. 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 U.S. court orders barring their deportation to those countries.
About a dozen people deported from the U.S. arrived in Sierra Leone Thursday, 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 Friday.
Sierra Leone is one of at least nine other African nations that the U.S. has struck third-country deportation deals with. 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 U.S.
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.”
The pamphlet, a copy of which was seen by the AP, was distributed by Kenvah Solutions, a private contractor that the Sierra Leone government said it hired to handle the deportees' accommodation, food, healthcare and transfer.
The pamphlet describes Sierra Leone as a “temporary transit location,” stating that “no long-term settlement is provided for or permitted.”
Kenvah Solutions and the Sierra Leonean authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Under a series of often-secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to nearly two dozen countries that are not their own, advocates say, all part of the broad U.S. crackdown on immigration. Immigration lawyers said the Trump administration uses deportations to third countries as a legal loophole to indirectly force asylum seekers back to their home countries.
Sierra Leone’s foreign minister, Timothy Kabba, said last month that the government’s agreement with the Trump administration is supported by a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. government.
The program is capped at 25 deportees per month and 300 per year, according to the ministry. It did not specify the duration of the arrangement.
Reilly, the attorney representing a Nigerian man among those deported Thursday, said the migrants had legal protections from U.S. courts to not be deported to their home countries after judges ruled they faced credible fears of persecution. Now they are left with little ability to prevent being sent there.
“They’re put in a position where they just don’t have a say at all,” Reilly said.
Earlier this month, rights lawyers filed a case against Equatorial Guinea before Africa’s top human rights body, accusing the central African nation of forcing deportees from the United States back to their home countries in violation of their rights.
“The U.S. government knows exactly what’s going to happen in the vast majority of these situations,” Reilly said. “Our government is just saying, ‘What happens to them after they leave the United States is not our problem.’”
Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal.
FILE - The city of Freetown, Sierra Leone, is seen on April 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu, File)
ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday showed off the new Air Force One, a formerly Qatari-owned jumbo jet that has been converted into the official U.S. presidential aircraft.
The new aircraft eschews the Kennedy-era robin’s egg blue exterior of the old plane for a bolder look, with the underbelly of the plane painted navy blue with a red stripe above it. The plane's left side, where the president boards, features the presidential seal, while the tail of the aircraft has a massive American flag on it.
“This plane was transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody has ever seen before,” Trump said from inside the massive Andrews Air Force Base hangar, as a couple hundred assembled Air Force personnel looked on. He spoke after stepping off the new plane in a dramatic flourish, as his signature tune “God Bless the USA” played.
He confirmed that he would be taking the new jet to the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, next month and indicated he would be returning to China “at some point,” presumably a reference to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that China is hosting in November. His return from the Group of 7 summit in France this week was the last planned trip aboard the old Air Force One, he said.
“Now, when we land at airports in London and in Germany and different places, nobody tops this one, and that’s the way we have to have it for our country,” Trump said, noting that the colors and the design were to “my taste, I will say."
He added that the new Air Force One will do a flyover during the July 4 celebrations next month.
The gift from Qatar is serving as a so-called “bridge” aircraft to carry the president until the new planes ordered directly from Boeing arrive. That is currently slated for 2028.
The administration formally accepted a luxury Boeing 747 jet from Qatar last year to be used as the presidential airplane, despite questions about the ethics and legality of accepting such an expensive gift from a foreign government. Trump has insisted in the past that he would not fly around in the Qatari jet once he leaves office and said it would instead be donated to a future presidential library.
Trump on Friday said the U.S. was in a “little bit of a logjam” as they awaited the delivery of the new jets directly from Boeing, which had originally been scheduled for 2024 but have been delayed. He recalled asking the emir of Qatar for use of one of their planes.
"See, a normal president wouldn’t do this. A normal president wants to stay away from aircraft," Trump said Friday. “But our country has to be represented properly.”
The Air Force said in a news release Friday that any plane deemed Air Force One “must meet rigorous security requirements” and that the Qatari plane “was modified under a disciplined engineering approach that prioritized these exact core capabilities above all else.” The Air Force also said “much of the previous head of state interior layout” of the plane was kept intact.
The Air Force has said in the past that security modifications to the jet would cost less than $400 million.
Trump's efforts to reimagine the presidential airplane date back to his first administration, when he directed that an incoming fleet of new jets would adopt a color scheme that was nearly identical to that of his personal airplane. Then-President Joe Biden reversed the decision in March 2023 as an Air Force review suggested that the darker colors could increase costs and delay delivery of the new jets, but once Trump returned to office, he returned to his desired colors for the plane.
Other government jets that carry other top administration officials will also use the similar red, white and navy color scheme, the Air Force said earlier this year.
An Air Force spokesperson, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive plans, told The Associated Press that the two current planes, known as VC-25As, will not be retiring. Instead, they will remain in the fleet until the new Boeing planes, referred to as VC-25Bs, come into service, the spokesperson said.
It is unclear how the older jets will be used but the spokesperson said that both the Qatari jet as well as the VC-25As will be available for use and “the Presidential Airlift Group will select the appropriate aircraft for each mission based on operational requirements.”
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Kim reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report from Washington.
President Donald Trump, left, speaks alongside Air Force Gen. Dale White after touring the newly designated Air Force One presidential aircraft at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, June 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
The newly designated Air Force One presidential aircraft sits in a hangar following a tour by President Donald Trump at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, June 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Donald Trump speaks after touring the newly designated Air Force One presidential aircraft at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, June 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Donald Trump exits the newly designated Air Force One presidential aircraft following a tour at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, June 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Donald Trump speaks after touring the newly designated Air Force One presidential aircraft at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, June 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Donald Trump speaks after touring the newly designated Air Force One presidential aircraft at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, June 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
