In the United States, investigating the brutal methods of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can expose journalists to prosecution, detention, and even deportation.
On June 14, 2025, Salvadoran reporter Mario Guevara experienced this: arrested while covering a demonstration against ICE near Atlanta, Georgia, on the sidelines of the protest against President Donald Trump, he was deported to El Salvador four months later.
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Cover image: The Deportation Project – Revelations about the Trump administration’s mass deportations © Forbidden Stories
To continue and protect this work, the Forbidden Stories network of journalists launched a massive investigation titled “The Deportation Project: Revelations about the Trump Administration’s Mass Deportations.”
Around a hundred interviews, 72 journalists, 15 countries
Since January 2025, more than 25,000 foreigners have been deported from the United States to countries where most of them have no ties. The majority of them had obtained protection on American soil prohibiting them from being sent back to their country of origin if they risked persecution there.
To circumvent this measure, the Trump administration has concluded agreements with 35 so-called “third country” states so that they agree to welcome them. Agreements with opaque counterparties, negotiated confidentially.
To understand the mechanisms, a consortium was set up bringing together 72 journalists from 26 media outlets, in 15 countries. During the six months that the investigation lasted, they collected more than a hundred testimonies, including 33 directly from deported migrants.
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Cover image: ICE, Trump and Africa © France 24
At the heart of the African part of the investigation
Among the agreements signed by Washington, twelve were concluded with African countries. This investigation reveals how negotiations were carried out behind the scenes to organize these transfers.
From Ghana to Cameroon, via Eswatini, our journalists followed for several months the broken destiny of people abandoned in countries with which they have no connection.
To be found from Monday on France 24
Without passports or landmarks: in Cameroon, the castaways of Trump’s migration policy
For France24.com, David Rich investigated the journey and reception conditions of migrant women deported to Cameroon, shedding light on the contours of the confidential agreement concluded between Washington and Yaoundé.
Also readWithout passports or landmarks: in Cameroon, the castaways of Trump’s migration policy
Reporters +: “ICE, Trump and Africa: secret agreements, lives sacrificed”
In this documentary, Karina Chabour retraces the journey of people expelled to Ghana and Eswatini. Some had lived in the United States for several decades. They worked there, paid their taxes, started a family and built their life.
From one day to the next, they are sent back to an unknown country, where they risk detention, ill-treatment or deportation back to their country of origin, risking their lives.
Also readICE, Trump and Africa: secret agreements, lives sacrificed
Interactive map: the scale of the Trump administration’s policies in numbers
Lise Kiennemann, journalist from the France 24 Observers editorial team, participated alongside Forbidden Stories and Evident Media in the census of transfers often kept secret.
This interactive map allows you to visualize the expulsion of more than 25,000 people and the 35 countries that have reached agreements with Washington.
Also readExpulsions to third countries: the scale of the Trump administration’s policy in figures
Graphic story: “Flight to Ghana”, testimonies of deportees from the United States to an unknown country
The graphic story by Lise Kiennemann and Léa Peruchon (Forbidden Stories) tells the journey of people deported to Ghana during the flight of November 6, 2025.
Through audio and video testimonies, we follow the stories of several of them, such as Sierra Leonean Rabbiatu, a nurse for 20 years in the United States before being deported to Ghana.
Coming Tuesday September 22
“I had never heard of Eswatini”: expelled in a country that rejects them
In the heart of Eswatini, the last absolute monarchy on the African continent, a discreet agreement with the United States on the reception of 160 migrants convicted by American justice triggers an unprecedented protest. The investigation by Caroline Dumay, correspondent for France 24 in southern Africa.
Coming Wednesday September 23
Donald Trump’s “geopolitics of constraint”
A series of reports and analyzes by Florence Morice for RFI.
Read on RFIMigrants deported to Africa: diving into the mechanics of the Trump administration
