60 Minutes Transcript: Inside Trump's third-country deportations

Nearly one million people were deported from the U.S. during the first year and a half of President Trump's second term. Most were returned to their country of origin. About 25,000, though, were sent somewhere else – places where they may have never been and may not speak the language. They're called "third countries," because they're not the U.S. and not the person's home country. Iranians were sent to Panama, Cubans to the Central African Republic. Deportations like these can be legal, and past administrations have carried them out, but not at this scale. Our five-month investigation uncovered cases in which people ended up in places where U.S. immigration judges said they would likely be persecuted or tortured.

On July 11th, Moussa Diawara, who's been in the U.S. for 25 years with no criminal record – was wrapping up his night shift as an Uber driver, heading to the home in the Houston suburbs he owns with his wife and children, who are U.S. citizens.

But when he pulled up, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were waiting for him.

Voice on dashcam: Sir, we got a warrant for your arrest of a removal outside of the U.S.

After three weeks in ICE detention in Texas – without being able to speak to his lawyer or a judge – he was put on a plane and deported to West Africa. 

And that's where we met him two months after his arrest, thousands of miles away from his Texas home.

Moussa Diawara: For me it was like-- an-- a nightmare. That's like, "Oh, my God, what's happened? 

Gianna Toboni: It just didn't feel real.

Moussa Diawara: I still say to myself, "This isn't real. This is me? 

Twenty five years ago, Diawara entered the U.S. and overstayed a tourist visa. He applied for refugee protection, arguing he would be persecuted if he were returned to Mali – the war-torn African country he's from. In 2012, a U.S. immigration judge ruled he could be deported, but not to Mali. As a result of the ruling, he was able to get a U.S. work permit. 

Past administrations rarely deported people in Diawara's situation. But as part of the Trump administration's mass deportation operation, ICE has deported 25,000 people to dozens of third countries that in return receive millions of dollars in aid or other benefits from the U.S.

On July 31st, Diawara landed in a place he'd never been – Ghana. He says that he and others were detained in this hotel by armed guards and not allowed to make phone calls. 

Moussa Diawara: I cannot call my wife, I can't contact my lawyer. I can't talk to no one. I tell them, "This is kidnapping. You guys kidnapped us."

Gianna Toboni: Do you have any connection to Ghana?

Moussa Diawara: I don't have any connection.

Gianna Toboni: Do you know anyone there?

Moussa Diawara: I don't know no one to Ghana. 

Within five days, Diawara says, Ghanaian officials forced him onto a flight to the very country a U.S. judge said he could not be deported to — Mali. 

This is where he was when we first managed to contact him in August: homeless and in hiding in Mali.

Part of the reason he didn't feel safe, he told us, is that he'd converted to Christianity. Mali's a Muslim-majority nation with an Islamist insurgency. 

Diawara told us he was dropped here with no money, or ID.

Moussa Diawara: That bench is my bed for the last two weeks. Oh, Jesus Christ.

After three weeks in Mali, with the help of some local truckers, he escaped to another African country, which he asked us not to disclose.

Gianna Toboni: Little bit different than a Texas grocery store. 

Moussa Diawara: Oh, yes. No, big difference.

Moussa Diawara: For me, America was everything. I called America my home, because I'm 57 now. I move in America when I was 32. I don't know no where.

Gianna Toboni: The U.S. government's position is that you overstayed your visa. You were in the country illegally for a period of time. That they had an order of deportation. They couldn't send you to Mali, but they could send you to a third country and that's what happened. 

Moussa Diawara: They can send me to third country. But not back to my country of origin. And that's what they do. They do something wrong. 

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security told us Ghana had provided the U.S. with "diplomatic assurances for his safety." DHS also questioned the credibility of Diawara's arguments for fearing persecution in Mali. 

James Percival: You know, I think a lot of people who make fear claims-- do not make credible ones. There's a lot of fraud there, and so if somebody found themselves in a different country and decided they'd rather go home then that's their decision 

James Percival, the top lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security, told us third-country deportations are widely misunderstood. 

James Percival: I absolutely believe with all of my heart that these third country removals have stopped crimes from happening and kept Americans safer and that is our fundamental obligation at the Department of Homeland Security.

Gianna Toboni: Why does the U.S. deport people to third countries?

James Percival: So like one example is somebody, maybe they're a serious criminal, and the country just won't take them back. Another is sometimes aliens get a country-specific form of relief where the immigration judge says, "You need to leave the United States but you have to go somewhere other than your home country." 

When an immigration judge rules that someone cannot safely be sent back to their home country, it's called "withholding of removal." Moussa Diawara had that protection. So did dozens of others on his deportation flight.

We obtained the names of all 63 people on Diawara's flight, which left Texas on July 30th and stopped in Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic and Ghana. Seventeen of the 19 people we reached who were sent to Ghana told us the same thing: Ghana quickly transported them, against their will, to countries that U.S. immigration judges had ruled they should not be returned to. 

Gianna Toboni: Are you aware of cases where Ghana has sent people against their will to a country, their home country where they have a withholding of removal? 

James Percival: I'm not aware of any such cases.

Gianna Toboni: Do you think these people are voluntarily going back? 

James Percival: Either they would choose to go home, and they might not always be truthful about the fact that they consented, so that's one possibility. The other possibility is that the foreign government applied their own procedures and, consistent with international law, determined that it was acceptable to return them home. 

Gianna Toboni: I mean what we have seen in case after case in one flight we looked into, almost every single person on the flight within days after arriving in Ghana were sent back to their home country where a U.S. judge has said, "It is more than likely that they will face persecution or torture." 

James Percival: I mean I think I already answered this question number one-- they can always consent to go home and that may very well be what occurred. And number two—

Gianna Toboni: But that's clearly not what's happening, right. They're clearly not consenting—

James Percival: Well--

Gianna Toboni: I don't know if you've seen this video of a woman being dragged to her deportation flight to her home country where she had a withholding of removal. She is resisting. Have you seen this video? 

James Percival: I have not seen that video.

An eyewitness confirmed those are Ghanaian officials pulling this woman, Rabbiatu Kuyateh, a nurse who lived in the U.S. for 30 years.

Gianna Toboni: Do you think the U.S. knew that you would end up in Mali?

Moussa Diawara: 100%. 

Gianna Toboni: Why? 

Diawara showed us a document he says U.S. officials gave him on the deportation flight, along with a small supply of his medication. 

Moussa Diawara: They say here destination S-H-R-C Mali."

S-H-R-C stands for special high risk charter, referring to the kind of flight he was on. 

Moussa Diawara: So they know 100% I'm going to Mali.

Gianna Toboni: It doesn't say Ghana.

Moussa Diawara: It just says Mali. 

And so do both of his DHS-issued bag tags:

Gianna Toboni: "To Mali."

Gianna Toboni: It says, "Destination: Mali." 

James Percival: Well, he wasn't flown to Mali. He was-- he was flown to Ghana, so I-- but I can't speak to why that piece of paper says that--

Gianna Toboni: What he says is he thinks the U.S. government, you know, coordinated this or at a minimum was aware of it. 

James Percival: I can just say, I was-- I was not aware of that. That is not my understanding of how this works. 

After our interview, DHS sent this statement saying the bag tags were "produced by contractors" who "are not part of the process that determines…the destination." And the medication form, they said, was a "clerical error." Ghana's government declined to comment. 

James Percival: It seems like you're very focused on Ghana. Do you want to talk about any of the other countries? 

Gianna Toboni: Sure. Sierra Leone, when folks arrive, they receive a pamphlet. The pamphlet says, "Sierra Leone is serving as a temporary transit location while arrangements are made to return you to your country of origin." 

James Percival: Again, they are entitled to return to their home country if they consent. They are also entitled-- to process the fear claim, as we discussed. 

Meredyth Yoon: There's no way that U.S. officials don't know what Ghana is doing to people that the U.S. deports there. 

Immigration attorney Meredyth Yoon says the U.S. government was warned about Ghana's conduct in a lawsuit last year. Despite this, the U.S. sent 10 more flights to Ghana, which Yoon believes is a violation of international law. 

Gianna Toboni: Why do you think the U.S. violated international law if they didn't send Moussa straight to Mali. They sent him to Ghana, who sent him to Mali. 

Meredyth Yoon: They sent him to Ghana, with full knowledge that Ghana is systematically deporting refugees back to the very countries they fled. 

Gianna Toboni: I just sort of wonder if the U.S. government is sort of looking the other way when there's evidence in front of them 

James Percival: I mean, I think you've asked me the same question about five times. I'd really like to talk about the public safety threats associated with this population of aliens and the fact that every administration before President Trump absolutely abdicated their responsibility to the American people by letting criminals back on the street and doing no diplomatic efforts to get these people out of our country. 

Percival says "third countries" like Eswatini and South Sudan have agreed to accept deportees with criminal records for first degree murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, and sexual assault when their home countries refused to take them back. 

Gianna Toboni: What percentage of folks who have been detained and deported are violent offenders?

James Percival: So I don't have that figure off the top of my head.

Of the 63 people on Diawara's flight to Africa, we found a criminal charge or conviction for 19%, including theft, assault, drugs and weapons possession. For everyone else, we found either traffic violations… or no criminal record at all. 

Gianna Toboni: What our reporting also reveals though is that a lot of these people are nurses. They're moms. They're Uber drivers. Is that part of what this administration is trying to do, remove these folks? 

James Percival: This administration is following the law that Congress has passed. There are a lot of people in this population that we talk about, who committed very serious crimes. And people should be very happy with President Trump for getting these serious criminals out of the country. 

Moussa Diawara: I'm not a criminal. I'm raising two child. I'm—I—I'm a married man and I'm working and paying taxes. 

Last month, a federal appeals court upheld a ruling in a class action lawsuit that found the Trump administration's third-country policy "unlawful" because it denied deportees due process. But the Supreme Court has allowed these deportations to continue until it hears the case in December. 

As for Moussa Diawara, his attorney has asked a federal judge in D.C. to order him returned to the U.S. 

Back in Texas, Diawara's family is waiting for him. His wife Barbara works full time as a registered nurse. Their son Corey is 16, and their daughter Chloe, 12.

Moussa Diawara: Hello guys.

Barbara Johnson: Oh, my God, we're so happy to see you, look at your daughter. 

Moussa Diawara: Oh my gosh. Chloe, how is school?

Chloe: Good. I got a hundred on the test review

Moussa Diawara: Wow! A hundred! 

Gianna Toboni: Your dad had a big presence in your day-to-day life here.

Corey: Yeah. It feels really empty without him. 

Gianna Toboni: Chloe, I know you were really close with your dad. How are you feeling?  

Chloe: Not really great. Like, he was always making me feel, like, better.

Gianna Toboni: Do you worry about your mom right now?

Corey: I worry about my mom a lot. 

Barbara Johnson: I'm trying, you know, not to cry in front of them, to be strong for them, because they need me. 

Moussa Diawara: Corey - listen to Mommy OK? 

Corey: OK 

Moussa Diawara: Don't forget – every Sunday, you need to vacuum the-- carpet upstairs, okay?

Corey: Okay.

Moussa Diawara: I love you guys so much, bye.

Barbara Johnson: Love you, good night, bye-bye.

Corey: Goodbye.

Chloe: Bye.

Corey: Bye, Dad.

Produced by Andy Court, Annabelle Hanflig and Camilo Montoya-Galvez. Associate producers, Marcos Caballero and Jane Greeley. Edited by Matthew Lev.

In:

• Immigration
• Ghana
• U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement