The United States expelled five men to the Southern African country of Eswatini on Tuesday as part of its ongoing efforts to exile immigrants to so-called “third countries.” The move closely followed the United States’ deportation of eight men — seven with no connection to the country — to violence-plagued South Sudan.

The Trump administration has been expanding its global gulag for expelled immigrants, exploring deals with more than a quarter of the world’s nations to accept deported persons who are not their citizens. Many of these countries are beset by violence, have been excoriated by the State Department for human rights abuses, or both.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, celebrated the expulsion of the five men, who hail from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam, and Yemen. In the U.S., McLaughlin said, the men were convicted of serious crimes and had been sentenced to significant time in prison.

“This flight took individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back,” she wrote on X, calling the men “depraved monsters.”

Neither the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the State Department, nor the government of Eswatini responded to The Intercept’s requests for comment before publication.

The State Department’s most recent human rights report on Eswatini, a tiny absolute monarchy landlocked by South Africa and Mozambique, paints a damning portrait. It refers to credible reports of arbitrary or unlawful killings, including extrajudicial killings; torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; and the incarceration of political prisoners.

“Eswatini is an absolute monarchy in a severe economic crisis with a problematic human rights record. On what conditions has it agreed to take these people?”

Anwen Hughes, the senior director........

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