US deports migrants to country they’ve never called home

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP):

A new group of third-country nationals was deported by the United States to Cameroon yesterday, lawyers told The Associated Press, days after it came to light that the Trump administration sent nine people to the Central African nation last month as part of its secretive programme to remove immigrants to countries they have no ties with.

Lawyer Alma David of the US-based Novo Legal Group said that a group of migrants who were not Cameroonian citizens arrived on a deportation flight that landed in the capital, Yaounde, on Monday.

David and Cameroon-based lawyer Joseph Awah Fru said they believed there were eight third-country nationals on the plane but had not spoken to them yet. The two lawyers said they are giving legal advice to some of the nine migrants -- five women and four men -- from other African countries who were deported from the US to Cameroon last month.

The lawyers also expected to offer counsel to the new group of deportees, they said.

"For now, my focus is handling their shock," Fru said.

A White House official, who was not authorised to comment publicly about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged the second deportation flight to Cameroon but gave no details.

The New York Times first reported Saturday on the group of nine sent secretly to Cameroon last month. Two of them have since been repatriated to their home countries, David said.