Cuban Alleges Abuse During Deportation To Liberia Under Third-Country Deal
Originally published by News Americas Now Read the original
By Staff Writer, NewsAmericas Now
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Tues. Sept. 1, 2026: A Cuban national with a severe, pre-existing abdominal injury says he was shackled, denied bathroom access, and physically struck by ICE agents during a 14-hour deportation flight from Louisiana to Liberia this month, according to a New York Times investigation into the treatment of deportees sent to countries where they have no ties.
Leonardo Sánchez, 49, told the New York Times he cried in pain throughout the flight after agents refused to remove the chains binding his wrists, ankles and waist, or let him use the toilet. Sánchez had suffered severe abdominal wounds after being stabbed and shot during a 2018 robbery in Miami, injuries doctors said left a thin layer of grafted skin holding his intestines in place. Doctors who reviewed photos of his abdomen for the Times said the injury was extremely vulnerable to further harm.
Sánchez was among more than two dozen deportees on the flight, part of the first group of an expected 1,200 people the U.S. plans to send to Liberia over the next year under one of dozens of third-country deportation deals the Trump administration has struck, mostly with African nations. The Times reported that the arrangements have included deporting people with active court orders protecting them from removal to their home countries.
According to the Times, when the flight landed in Monrovia, Sánchez and three others refused to disembark, fearing they were being abandoned in an unfamiliar country. Sánchez said agents forced him onto the tarmac, knelt on his injured abdomen and left him in agony with his clothing still wet from being denied bathroom access earlier in the flight.
The Department of Homeland Security disputed key details of Sánchez’s account, telling the Times that no detainees were denied bathroom access, that medical staff had cleared Sánchez to fly, that his medical needs were addressed in-flight, and that agents did not kneel on his abdomen. The department did not address several other allegations raised by deportees on the flight.
DHS said Sánchez, who arrived in the U.S. in 2010 under the Cuban Adjustment Act, had received due process and was ordered removed in May following a 2025 cocaine possession conviction, for which Sánchez said he completed community service and paid a fine while on probation.
After being carried back onto the plane in Liberia, Sánchez and others were flown on to Equatorial Guinea, one of at least 35 countries with which the U.S. has struck deportation agreements. There, according to the Times, Sánchez was told local medical staff lacked the equipment to treat his condition and was given only a painkiller. He and other deportees are now held at a hotel in the country under armed guard, with one deportee telling the Times that guards threatened to shoot their feet if they attempted to escape.
The Times reported that nine other deportees on the same flight described similar allegations of abusive treatment, including being restricted to a frigid holding room they called “the freezer,” being denied medical care, and being moved repeatedly between detention facilities, a practice one immigration attorney described to the Times as a tactic to prevent detainees from mounting legal challenges.
DHS has broadly denied mistreatment allegations across the deportee accounts, telling the Times that detainees receive comprehensive medical care and that no one is tortured, denied care or beaten in ICE custody, citing instead a sharp rise in assaults against ICE officers.
A federal judge ruled the third-country deportation policy unlawful in February, but an appeals court has allowed the deportations to continue while the case is under review.
This story is based on reporting by The New York Times. NewsAmericasNow will continue tracking U.S. immigration policy affecting the Caribbean.