The men who refused to get off the plane in Liberia did not get to stay on it either. Six of them, including Sanchez, were flown on to Equatorial Guinea instead, where he says doctors told him the country lacked equipment to treat the wound agents allegedly aggravated, and gave him a painkiller. They are now held in a hotel under guards carrying automatic weapons who told one deportee they would shoot off his feet if he tried to leave. This is not an isolated flight. The US now has third country deportation arrangements with more than 30 countries, and Equatorial Guinea alone has already drawn an international human rights complaint from 14 earlier deportees for accepting people the US itself cannot legally send home. Senator Shaheen asked the State Department months ago why it paid that country 7.5 million dollars to take them.
This is a stain on this nation. Especially on the Trump administration of course—but also on every member of Congress who’s failing to step forward to end this. I hope they can sleep at night. Actually, I hope they can’t.
nytimes.com/2026/08/30/world…




