OPINION: America deports Iranians to one of the most dangerous countries in the world

Bangui, Friday, June 12, 2026: Iranian women land in the Central African Republic

Thursday evening, a Department of Homeland Security charter flight took off from Alexandria International Airport in Louisiana. On board: roughly twenty foreign nationals — Iranians, Turks, Syrians, Afghans. Destination: Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic. Among them, two Iranian women who had applied for asylum in the United States. One had converted to Christianity — which in Iran carries a potential death sentence. The other was a pro-democracy activist opposed to the Tehran regime. Both had obtained protective orders from a U.S. immigration judge. Both ended up in Bangui regardless.

By Friday, June 12, 2026, they were in the Central African Republic. A country that the U.S. State Department itself classifies at Level 4 — the maximum — with this explicit warning: "Do not travel to Central African Republic for any reason. U.S. citizens are at risk due to unrest, crime, kidnapping, health, terrorism, and other." A country where the State Department advises its own citizens to "draft a will" and to "leave DNA samples with your medical provider" before traveling there. A country where Americans are instructed to leave DNA samples to facilitate identification should the need arise.

Women with judicial protection, deported anyway

What makes this story particularly brutal is the judicial protection these women had obtained. Their attorney, Emily Trostle, confirmed that they had applied for asylum and received protective orders from a U.S. immigration judge — orders intended to prevent their deportation. Those protections did not stop their departure. The Trump administration proceeded anyway, citing a migration agreement just concluded with the Central African Republic — an agreement whose terms remain confidential.

Trostle stated plainly what she observed: these women were "deported from the United States and abandoned in a third country" where they had neither legal status nor a support network. She feared they would ultimately be forced back to the countries they had fled — namely Iran, where their lives are in danger. They had arrived in the United States in November 2024, were detained upon arrival, had applied for asylum, and now found themselves in one of the most unstable countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The logic of this decision is not medical. It is not humanitarian. It is political.

I want people to understand what this means concretely: a woman who fled Iran because she converted to Christianity, who obtained protection from a U.S. court, was put on a plane to a country that the United States itself considers too dangerous for its own citizens. That is the immigration policy of the world's leading democracy in 2026.

A Level 4 country designated by its own partner

The Central African Republic is one of the poorest and most unstable countries on earth. Since the civil war of 2013 — triggered by a coup against President François Bozizé the previous year — the country has never recovered lasting stability. President Faustin-Archange Touadéra's government has for a decade maintained close ties with the Russian paramilitary group Wagner — present in the country since 2018 and accused of numerous abuses against the civilian population. The U.S. State Department itself has acknowledged that wherever the Wagner group operates, there is a sharp rise in civilian deaths.

The paradox is striking: the United States is deporting Iranian nationals to a country under Wagner's influence — the Russian mercenaries Washington otherwise denounces as a global security threat. These Iranian women fleeing a regime allied with Russia find themselves in a country controlled by Russian paramilitaries. That is a political coherence worth examining. American foreign policy, in all its contradictory complexity, has resulted in sending opponents of the Iranian regime into Wagner's sphere of influence.

The opaque deal between Washington and Bangui

The migration agreement between the United States and the Central African Republic was concluded discreetly. Christian Jové Ehrhardt, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration at the State Department, made a quiet visit to Bangui on May 18 to finalize the deal. The terms have remained confidential — neither the Central African presidency nor the State Department responded to comment requests from Le Monde, which broke the story on June 13, 2026.

What is known: the group of roughly twenty migrants is to be housed in apartments. The International Organization for Migration is to provide humanitarian assistance at the Central African government's request. The United States paid the IOM 85 million dollars in March for "humanitarian assistance activities abroad for the benefit of refugees, victims of conflicts." American money is therefore funding the reception in a country the United States itself classifies at the maximum danger level. Consistency is not this policy's strong suit.

A secret migration agreement with one of the most dangerous countries in the world, finalized during a discreet visit, with confidential terms. When transparency is this absent, it is generally because what is being done cannot withstand the light.

A network of African countries that accept being destinations

The Central African Republic is not the first African country to serve as a destination for American deportations of non-African nationals. Before it, the United States had already concluded agreements with Ghana, Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Each of these agreements follows the same logic: find countries willing to receive migrants that the United States cannot legally send back to their countries of origin — because those countries refuse to take them back, or because U.S. courts have ruled the return illegal on humanitarian grounds.

The strategy is legally clever. If American courts block the return of an Iranian to Iran, the administration does not send the Iranian to Iran. It sends them to the Central African Republic. Technically, the court's decision is respected. In practice, the individual is placed in a situation of potentially comparable or worse danger. That is legal circumvention by absurdity: the letter of the law is observed, its spirit is trampled.

The DRC precedent: what tracking data reveals

A previous case offers a glimpse of the fate awaiting those deported to these third countries. In mid-April, fifteen people from Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru had been deported to Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At the time of writing, only one person remained in the DRC. The other fourteen had disappeared from authorities' radar. That means concretely that they had either managed to flee to another country, returned clandestinely to their countries of origin, or — in the darkest scenario — fallen victim to the region's endemic violence.

That tracking rate illustrates the reality of deportations to unstable third countries: once people are dropped off on the ground, the United States loses all visibility over their fate. The objective is not their protection. The objective is their removal from American territory. What happens to them afterward does not figure in American immigration statistics. They have simply "disappeared" from the problem.

Fourteen of fifteen people disappeared after deportation to the DRC. The United States made them disappear from a political problem by making them reappear in a country at war. That is a very American way of solving a problem by creating it somewhere else.

The geopolitical irony of a blind decision

Among the most troubling elements of this case is its geopolitical dimension. These Iranian women had fled Iran — a regime that, since 2022, has been supplying drones to Russia to strike Ukraine, a regime allied with Moscow in its confrontation with the West. Savi Arvey of Human Rights First explicitly noted that the risk is particularly high for people fleeing persecution in countries linked to Russia — such as Iran. And that the Central African Republic is precisely a country where the Wagner group, the Kremlin's armed and commercial arm in Africa, is deeply entrenched.

The Trump administration regularly denounces Iran as a threat to the West and condemns Wagner's presence in Africa. But in this specific decision, it sends Iranian dissidents into a Wagner-controlled zone. That is not strategic coherence. It is the result of an immigration policy driven by the obsession with removal — regardless of where people land, regardless of whose hands they fall into. The point is that they are gone.

Judicial protections and their ineffectiveness against political will

The case of the Iranian women raises a fundamental constitutional question in the United States: what is the value of protection granted by an immigration court if the administration can bypass it by changing the destination of the deportation? These women had obtained protective orders meant to shield them from removal. They were removed — not to Iran, granted, but to a country their attorney described as one where they risked violence or being forced back to the countries they had fled.

That question is not rhetorical. It has direct implications for thousands of people in similar situations — with judicial protections obtained on the grounds that returning them to their countries of origin would be illegal, but potentially vulnerable to this new strategy of deportation to third countries. American courts will have to rule on this question. Until they do, the administration has troubling legal room to maneuver.

A judicial protection that can be circumvented simply by changing the flight destination is not a protection. It is a piece of paper. And in this administration, paper burns fast.

American credibility as a defender of human rights

The United States presents itself on the international stage as a defender of human rights, religious freedom, and freedom of expression. These values are central to the American discourse on Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea. America defines itself as the center of a free, open West that respects individual rights. That is what distinguishes the West from its authoritarian adversaries — the creed that justifies support for Ukraine, sanctions against Iran, and resistance to China's rising power.

And then there is the charter flight of June 12, 2026, with two Iranian women on board — a Christian convert, a pro-democracy activist — sent to Bangui. These two women should have been exactly the kind of people America welcomes. They were fleeing a theocratic, authoritarian regime that Washington regularly denounces. They were imprisoned upon arriving in the United States, then sent to one of the most dangerous countries in the world. The dissonance between rhetoric and reality is total.

What Russia and Iran are watching

While Washington lectures Moscow and Tehran on human rights, those capitals are watching American contradictions closely. Every deportation of Iranian dissidents into zones under Russian influence is a rhetorical argument handed free of charge to authoritarian regime propaganda. Iran can show its citizens that fleeing to America leads nowhere — that America returns fugitives to dangerous zones. Russia can claim that Western democracy is nothing but hypocritical facade.

These arguments are false in their generality. But in the specific case of the June 12, 2026 flight, they carry an uncomfortably factual resonance. The Trump administration is not merely managing an immigration problem. It is handing its geopolitical adversaries first-rate rhetorical ammunition, at the precise moment when the West needs to present a credible front against Russia in Ukraine and Iran in the Middle East. Immigration policy is never just immigration policy. It is also foreign policy.

I think of Zelensky, in Kyiv, fighting to convince the West to support Ukraine in the name of democratic values and freedom. And I think of those Iranian women in Bangui. Both images coexist in the same week, in the same America. The contradiction should be unbearable. Apparently, it is not.

Human Rights First: particularly high risks

Savi Arvey of Human Rights First raised the alarm about the specific risks these women face: they had "no status, no support network" in the Central African Republic. They did not speak Sango or Central African French. They had no connection to the country. In a region marked by widespread insecurity, a failed state, and the presence of armed groups, women alone without local networks are particularly vulnerable. The question is not hypothetical: it concerns their immediate physical safety.

Human rights organizations are demanding several concrete measures: the publication of the terms of the Washington-Bangui agreement, a public risk assessment for individuals deported to the CAR, monitoring mechanisms to ensure these individuals are not subjected to violence or trafficking, and a re-evaluation of procedures that allow judicial protections to be bypassed by changing the deportation destination. These demands are reasonable. They are awaiting a response that has not come.

Available legal remedies

On the legal front, organizations including the ACLU and the National Immigration Law Center are examining the legal grounds for challenging these third-country deportations. The central argument is that deportation to a dangerous third country may be equivalent, in terms of the real risks faced by the individual, to a deportation to their country of origin that courts have prohibited. If American courts accept this reasoning, the third-country deportation strategy will be legally compromised. If not, the administration will have nearly unlimited latitude to send migrants wherever any country accepts a deal.

This legal battle will be long. It will likely reach the Supreme Court. And while it plays out in courtrooms, women like those on the June 12 flight are in Bangui, in apartments, waiting. Without status. Without a network. In a Level 4 country.

I am not naive about immigration. I understand that a country cannot take in everyone. But there is a difference between a strict immigration policy and sending women with judicial protection to a country your own government classifies as too dangerous to send your tourists to. That difference is called human dignity.

Neither the White House nor the State Department responds

One of the most striking features of this case is the institutional silence surrounding it. Neither the Central African presidency nor the U.S. State Department responded to comment requests from Le Monde, which broke the story on June 13, 2026. No press conference was held to explain the logic of this decision. No official answered questions about protecting individuals deported to a conflict zone.

This silence is not accidental. It is strategic. Decisions that cannot be publicly defended are made in administrative darkness, executed quickly, and presented as accomplished facts before judicial or media remedies can block them. That is exactly what happened with the June 12 flight: the women were in Bangui before their attorneys could obtain an injunction. The speed of execution was political protection for the administration, not for those deported.

Congress and the absence of democratic oversight

The policy of deportation to African third countries is developing without a clear legal framework and without meaningful oversight from Congress. The agreements with these countries are confidential. The criteria for selecting individuals for deportation are not public. Monitoring mechanisms for deported individuals are nonexistent or not disclosed. In a functioning democracy, a policy with such heavy consequences for vulnerable individuals should be subject to public debate, parliamentary hearings, and judicial review.

For now, the Trump administration is implementing this policy in a vacuum of democratic oversight that leaves Iranian women in Bangui, without legal status, without a network, in a Level 4 danger country. That vacuum is not permanent — the courts, Congress, and civil society will eventually intervene. But between the moment the policy is applied and the moment democratic safeguards activate, lives are at stake.

Secret agreements signed during quiet visits, confidential terms, deportations executed before remedies are possible. This policy is designed to operate in darkness. The fact that Le Monde exposed it is not trivial — it is the press filling, painfully, the role that democratic institutions should have played.

Dangerous third countries in the history of American deportations

The history of American immigration policy includes dark episodes where people fleeing persecution were returned to dangerous situations. During World War II, the United States refused to accept Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism — a decision whose historical shame is today universally recognized. The policy of deportation to African third countries in 2026 is not equivalent to those historical decisions in its scale. But it shares the same underlying logic: political convenience overrides the protection of vulnerable individuals.

What history teaches is that these decisions are always justified by their architects as necessary, pragmatic, inevitable. And it is often only decades later that society recognizes what it did. For the Iranian women who landed in Bangui on June 12, 2026, that belated recognition offers no concrete comfort. What matters is what is happening to them now. And what is happening to them now, America does not want to know.

What this precedent prepares for the years ahead

The strategy of deportation to African third countries, if not stopped by courts or Congress, will expand. More similar agreements will be concluded with other economically vulnerable countries ready to accept sums of money or other diplomatic advantages in exchange. The American deportation destination network already covers Ghana, Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, the DRC, and now the CAR. More will follow. And every new country added to this list represents a new category of people who can be deported to dangerous situations with no effective recourse.

The stakes are not abstract. Tens of thousands of people are currently in the United States with judicial protections shielding them from return to their home countries. If the third-country strategy is legally validated, those protections become theoretical. Anyone can be sent anywhere — as long as the destination country accepts the deal. That is America's immigration policy in 2026. And it deserves to be named for what it is.

I remember the inscription on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." I think of those Iranian women in Bangui. And I tell myself there are moments in history when symbols and reality drift so far apart that you no longer know whether the symbol is a lie or a forgotten goal.

A decision that says something about what we have become

The charter flight of June 12, 2026 is not an isolated incident. It is the symbol of a deliberate, systematic policy calculated to bypass existing legal and humanitarian protections. Iranian women fleeing persecution find themselves in a Wagner-influenced zone. Judicial protective decisions are circumvented by changing the destination. A secret agreement is signed with a Level 4 state. American money funds the IOM to manage the humanitarian fallout of an American policy whose terms are held confidential.

Trump's immigration policy is, on certain points, defensible — borders must be managed, undocumented immigration poses real challenges. But this specific case is not about border management. It concerns the fate of two women who had obtained legal protection, who had followed the very procedure the United States itself imposed on them, and who were nonetheless sent to a country their government considers too dangerous for its own citizens. There is no reasonable defense for that.

What the West must demand of itself

The West — Europe, Canada, the liberal democracies — has the right and the duty to say that this decision is incompatible with the values it claims to defend. Not to humiliate the United States, not to instrumentalize this case politically, but because the credibility of the West as an alternative order to Russian, Iranian, and Chinese authoritarianism depends precisely on its capacity to treat the most vulnerable with the dignity it claims as a founding principle.

The Central African Republic, with its broken roads, its armed groups, its ties to Wagner — that is not where the American dream should end for a woman who converted to Christianity and was fleeing Iran. That is not what America should be. And the very fact that this sentence can be written in 2026 is itself a measure of what we have lost.

The America I admire — imperfect, contradictory, but resolutely committed to the idea that every individual deserves a chance — was not on board that charter flight. That evening, in Alexandria, Louisiana, it was a different America. And I refuse to pretend it is the same thing.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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