The United States has forcibly transferred at least 65 third-country nationals to Equatorial Guinea since November, according to a new opinion piece by Tutu Alicante of EG Justice and Uzra Zeya of Human Rights First. Nearly all of these individuals had been granted protection by US immigration judges due to the high risk of persecution or torture in their countries of origin, yet Equatorial Guinea has been sending them back to those very places.
One of those held is Adam, a 26-year-old who fled forced military conscription after enduring abuse during service. A US immigration judge found he would probably face persecution if returned and issued a formal order shielding him from removal. In November 2025, the US sent him to Equatorial Guinea, a country he had never visited, where torture reportedly occurs in every prison nationwide, according to the most recent State Department human rights report. Adam and other men on the flight were told they were being transferred to another US detention facility; only midway through the 13-hour-10-minute flight, while shackled, did they learn their destination.
Hotel Bamy detention and assaults
For nearly a year, the Hotel Bamy in Malabo has been Adam's prison. He is confined alone to a hotel room under constant watch by security officers and soldiers. Recently, they barged into his room, handcuffed and beat him, warning him not to tell anyone. There are no charges, no formal sentence, and nothing on paper documenting his plight.
In the past few weeks, police in Equatorial Guinea violently assaulted and arrested two refugees who spoke out against detention conditions, witnesses and lawyers say, including Ahmed Soliman, an Egyptian man from Arizona who has lived in the US since age three, and Samson Birhane. They remain in police custody, detained incommunicado.
Funding and corruption concerns
The Trump administration repurposed $7.5m in November to pay the Equatorial Guinea government to accept third-country nationals, a 275% foreign assistance increase. Congress had appropriated these funds for humanitarian assistance for refugees, but they are now used to detain, shackle, and send refugees back to the countries they fled.
Equatorial Guinea's government and ruling family are described as among the most corrupt on earth. About a decade ago, the US Justice Department settled a civil forfeiture case against Vice-President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, or “Teodorín,” who forfeited a $30m Malibu mansion, a Ferrari, and Michael Jackson memorabilia. The UK imposed sanctions on him in 2021. Yet last September, the Trump administration paused corruption-related visa restrictions that had prevented Teodorín from traveling to the US, clearing the way for him to meet with Christopher Landau, the US deputy secretary of state, before the deal to accept non-Equatoguineans.
Last week, Teodorín met Landau again at the United Nations in New York, where they celebrated a positive evolution of the bilateral relationship and discussed expanding cooperation beyond energy to banking, trade investment, security, and diplomacy.
Legal challenges and calls for action
EG Justice is challenging Equatorial Guinea's participation in the US deportation scheme before the African Commission on People's and Human Rights. In July, the Commission issued an emergency ruling ordering the government not to send people back to danger, but the government has ignored it, sending four people back to places from which they had received protection.
Human Rights First, with partners, successfully challenged the third-country deportation policy in federal court, but the US Supreme Court has intervened to allow rapid third-country deportations to resume while it rules. HRF also leads the ICE Flight Monitor platform, uncovering hidden deportation flights, and partners with Refugees International to shed light on US third-country forced transfer agreements with 35 countries.
Adam has been sick with malaria and typhoid fever since November. His second asylum claim, filed in January, remains in limbo; the judge told local counsel he lacks authority to hear it, as the vice-president is in charge. His habeas corpus petition remains unanswered. Guards repeatedly tell him to “go back to your country,” the outcome a US judge already ruled would put him at high risk of persecution.
The authors press for coordinated Magnitsky-style sanctions against senior Equatoguinean officials, including Teodorín, in the US, UK, Canada, and EU. They call on Congress to end misappropriation of migration and refugee resettlement funds. They conclude: “Adam and everyone held at Hotel Bamy should be released and given the chance to have their asylum claims heard in a country capable of hearing them, or returned to live safely in the United States.”
