Since January 2025, the Trump administration has implemented a policy involving the deportation of more than 25,000 migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers to "third countries"—nations that are not the migrants' countries of origin. This information comes from a seven-month investigation conducted by a consortium of 26 international media outlets, including France24, RFI, and The Guardian, coordinated by the organization Forbidden Stories.

The investigation suggests that these deportations are the result of undisclosed agreements between the U.S. government and several African nations, which have agreed to host individuals detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). While the administration has not publicly detailed the full scope of these arrangements, the consortium utilized data from NGOs and open-source intelligence to map the scale of the removals.

There is a notable difference in how the policy's intent is described. The Guardian reports that human rights lawyers characterize the policy as a "show of force" designed to deter unauthorized migration through fear. In contrast, France24 focuses more on the logistical and investigative aspects of the "secret deals" struck between the U.S. and host countries. Both outlets agree on the figure of 25,000 deportations and emphasize that the policy has largely operated with limited public transparency, which the consortium describes as being carried out "behind closed doors" or "under the cover of darkness."