Migration Equatorial Guinea US Deportees

Front row, from left, Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, first lady Constancia Mangue Nsue Okomo, and Equatorial Guinea Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang attend a Holy Mass with Pope Leo XIV at the Malabo Stadium in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, Thursday, April 23, 2026.

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Exclusive: Inside an African hotel where asylum seekers deported by the US are imprisoned

Exclusive: Inside an African hotel where asylum seekers deported by the US are imprisoned

Under an opaque $7.5 million deal with the Trump administration, Equatorial Guinea’s all-powerful president has turned a hotel owned by his family into a prison for asylum seekers deported from the United States. The asylum seekers' lawyers say they had previously been granted protection from U.S. judges. Of the at least 32 people imprisoned at the hotel since November, 25 have been forced back to home countries across Africa where their lives might be in danger. The rest face pressure from authorities to leave. The Trump administration uses deportations to third countries as a legal loophole, immigration lawyers say, to indirectly force asylum seekers back to their home countries.