ap

DAKAR, Senegal — Being gay in Morocco is illegal and punishable by up to three years in prison. But it was the violence from her family that forced Farah, a 21-year-old gay woman, to flee the country.

After a long journey to the United States and a third-country deportation by the Trump administration, however, Farah said she is now back in Morocco and in hiding.

“It is hard to live and work with the fear of being tracked once again by my family,” she told the Associated Press, in rare testimony from a person deported via a third country despite having protection orders from a U.S. immigration judge. “But there is nothing I can do. I have to work.”

She asked to be identified only by her first name for fear of persecution. The AP saw her protection order and lawyers verified parts of her account.

Farah said that before she fled, she was beaten by her family and the family of her partner when they found out about their relationship. She was kicked out of the family home and fled with her partner to another city. She said her family found her and tried to kill her.

Through a friend, she and her partner heard about the opportunity to get visas for Brazil and fly there with the aim of reaching the United States, where they had friends. From Brazil, she trekked through six countries for weeks to reach the U.S. border, where they asked for asylum.

“You get put in situations that are truly horrible,” she recalled. “When we arrived [at the U.S. border], it felt like it was worth the trouble and that we got to our goal.”

They arrived in early 2025. But instead of finding the freedom she envisioned, Farah said she was detained for almost a year, first in Arizona, then in Louisiana.

“It was very cold,” she said of detention. “And we only had very thin blankets.” Medical care was inadequate, she said.

She was denied asylum, but in August she received a protection order from a U.S. immigration judge, who ruled she cannot be deported to Morocco because that would endanger her life. Her partner, denied asylum and a protection order, was deported.

Farah said she was three days from a hearing on her release when she was handcuffed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and put on a plane to an African country she had never visited, and one where homosexuality is illegal: Cameroon. She was put in a detention facility.

“They asked me if I wanted to stay in Cameroon, and I told them that I can’t stay in Cameroon and risk my life in a place where I would still be endangered,” she said. She was flown to Morocco.

Most deportees had protection orders

She is one of dozens of people confirmed to be deported from the U.S. by the Trump administration to third countries despite being granted legal protection by U.S. immigration judges. The actual number is unknown.

The administration has used third-country deportations to pressure migrants who are in the U.S. illegally to leave on their own, saying they could end up “in any number of third countries.”

The detention facility in Cameroon’s capital of Yaounde, where Farah was held, currently has 15 deportees from various African countries who arrived on two flights, and none is Cameroonian, according to lawyer Joseph Awah Fru, who represents them.

Eight of the deportees on the first flight in January, including Farah, had received a judge’s protection orders, said Alma David, an immigration lawyer with the U.S.-based Novo Legal Group who has helped deportees and verified Farah’s case. The AP spoke to a woman from Ghana and a woman from Congo, who both said they had protection orders, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Another flight Monday brought eight more people. Three freelance journalists reporting on the deportations to Cameroon for the AP were briefly detained there.

Deporting people to a third country where they could be sent home was effectively a legal “loophole,” said David.

“By deporting them to Cameroon, and giving them no opportunity to contest being sent to a country whose government hoped to quietly send them back to the very countries where they face grave danger, the U.S. not only violated their due process rights but our own immigration laws, our obligations under international treaties and even DHS’ own procedures,” David said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security earlier confirmed there were deportations to Cameroon in January.

“We are applying the law as written. If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period,” it said, and asserted that the third-country agreements “ensure due process under the U.S. Constitution.”

Asked about the deportations to Cameroon, the U.S. State Department on Friday told the AP it had “no comment on the details of our diplomatic communications with other governments.” It did not reply to further questions.

Cameroon’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.

‘Impossible choices’

Farah was one of two women from the first group of deportees to return to Morocco.

“They were given two impossible choices,” David said, asserting that claiming asylum was not clearly presented as one of them. “This was before the lawyer had access to them.”

She said International Organization for Migration staff in the facility did not give them any indication that there was a viable option other than going back to their home countries.

Fru said he has not been granted access to the deportees. He said the assistant to the country director for the IOM, a U.N.-affiliated organization, told him he must apply to speak to them. Fru plans to do that Monday.

The IOM told the AP it was “aware of the removal of migrants from the United States of America to some African countries” and added that it “works with people facing difficult decisions about whether to return to their country of origin.” It said its role is providing accurate information about options and ensuring that “anyone who chooses to return does so voluntarily.”

The IOM said the facility in Yaounde was managed by the authorities in Cameroon. It did not respond to further questions.

African nations are paid millions

Cameroon is one of at least seven African nations to receive deported third-country nationals in a deal with the U.S. Others include South Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea.

Some have received millions of dollars in return, according to documents released by the State Department. Details of other agreements, including the one with Cameroon, have not been released.

The Trump administration has spent at least $40 million to deport about 300 migrants to countries other than their own, according to a report released last week by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

According to internal administration documents reviewed by the AP, 47 third-country agreements are in various stages of negotiation.

In Morocco, Farah said, it was hard to hear U.S. officials refer to people like her as a threat.

“The USA is built on immigration and by immigrant labor, so we’re clearly not all threats,” she said. “What was done to me was unfair. A normal deportation would have been fair, but to go through so much and lose so much, only to be deported in such a way, is cruel.”

Pronczuk writes for the Associated Press.

Atlanta Falcons rookie James Pearce Jr. is “maintaining his innocence” after being arrested Saturday near Miami. Pearce is facing five felony charges after allegedly intentionally crashing his SUV into a vehicle being driven by Los Angeles Sparks player Rickea Jackson multiple times.

The 22 year-old linebacker was arrested after crashing his vehicle while trying to flee the scene of what the Doral Police Department described as a domestic dispute with the WNBA star, the Associated Press reported. He also allegedly “intentionally” hit a police officer’s knee with his SUV while trying to get away.

“We look forward to working with the State Attorney’s office in fully investigating this case and uncovering the truth,” Pearce’s attorney, Jacob Nunez, said Monday in a statement to the AP.

“Mr. Pearce maintains his innocence and urges the public to understand that while allegations have the power to shape a narrative, that it is hardly the full, complete story. We look forward to vigorously defending our client and remain confident that he will continue contributing positively to both his team and the community he serves so well.”

Pearce’s charges include two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, one count of aggravated stalking, fleeing or eluding police with lights or siren, and aggravated battery of a law enforcement officer. He was released Sunday after posting a $20,500 bond at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. A judge also issued Pearce a pre-trial order to stay away from Jackson.

WPLG-TV reported that Pearce had been stalking Jackson after she had recently ended their three-year relationship. The NFL player had continued to try to contact Jackson despite her blocking his phone number and telling him to leave her alone and that she wanted nothing to do with him, WPLG said. “Fearing for her safety,” the Sparks forward had called 911 and was trying to get to the police station when Pearce purposefully crashed his vehicle into hers multiple times, according to the outlet.

“We are aware of an incident involving James Pearce Jr. in Miami,” the Falcons said in a statement to the AP. “We are in the process of gathering more information and will not have any further comment on an open legal matter at this time.”

MINNEAPOLIS — Alberto Castañeda Mondragón says his memory was so jumbled after a beating by immigration officers that he initially could not remember he had a daughter and still struggles to recall treasured moments like the night he taught her to dance.

But the violence he endured last month in Minnesota while being detained is seared into his battered brain.

He remembers Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulling him from a friend’s car on Jan. 8 outside a St. Paul shopping center and throwing him to the ground, handcuffing him, then punching him and striking his head with a steel baton. He remembers being dragged into an SUV and taken to a detention facility, where he said he was beaten again.

He also remembers the emergency room and the intense pain from eight skull fractures and five life-threatening brain hemorrhages.

“They started beating me right away when they arrested me,” the Mexican immigrant recounted last week to the Associated Press, which recently reported on how his case contributed to mounting friction between federal immigration agents and a Minneapolis hospital.

Castañeda Mondragón, 31, is one of an unknown number of immigration detainees who, despite avoiding deportation during the Trump administration’s enforcement crackdown, have been left with lasting injuries following violent encounters with ICE officers. His case is one of the excessive-force claims the federal government has thus far declined to investigate.

He was hurt so badly he was disoriented for days at Hennepin County Medical Center, where ICE officers constantly watched over him.

A dubious claim

The officers told nurses Castañeda Mondragón “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall,” an account his caregivers immediately doubted. A CT scan showed fractures to the front, back and both sides of his skull — injuries a doctor told AP were inconsistent with a fall.

“There was never a wall,” Castañeda Mondragón said in Spanish, recalling ICE officers striking him with the same metal rod used to break the windows of the vehicle he was in. He later identified it as an ASP, a telescoping baton routinely carried by law enforcement.

Training materials and police use-of-force policies across the U.S. say such a baton can be used to hit the arms, legs and body. But striking the head, neck or spine is considered potentially deadly force.

“The only time a person can be struck in the head with any baton is when the person presents the same threat that would permit the use of a firearm — a lethal threat to the officer or others,” said Joe Key, a former Baltimore police lieutenant and use-of-force expert who testifies in defense of police.

Once he was taken to an ICE holding facility at Ft. Snelling in suburban Minneapolis, Castañeda Mondragón said officers resumed beating him. Recognizing that he was seriously hurt, he said, he pleaded with them to stop, but they just “laughed at me and hit me again.”

“They were very racist people,” he said. “No one insulted them, neither me nor the other person they detained me with. It was their character, their racism toward us, for being immigrants.”

The Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, did not respond to repeated requests for comment over the last two weeks on Castañeda Mondragón’s injuries.

It is unclear whether his arrest was captured on body-camera video or if there might be additional recordings from security cameras at the detention center.

In a recent bid to boost transparency, Homeland Security announced a broad rollout of body cameras for immigration officers in Minneapolis as the government draws down ICE’s presence there.

ICE deportation officer William J. Robinson did not say how Castañeda Mondragón’s skull was smashed in a Jan. 20 declaration filed in federal court. During the intake process, it was determined he “had a head injury that required emergency medical treatment,” he wrote in the filing.

The declaration also stated that Castañeda Mondragón entered the U.S. legally in March 2022, and that the agency determined only after his arrest that he had overstayed his visa. A federal judge later ruled his arrest had been unlawful and ordered him released from ICE custody.

‘Hope they don’t kill you’

A video posted to social media captured the moments immediately after Castañeda Mondragón’s arrest as four masked men walk him handcuffed through a parking lot. The video shows him unsteady and stumbling, held up by ICE officers.

“Don’t resist!” shouts the woman who is recording. “‘Cause they ain’t gonna do nothing but bang you up some more.

“Hope they don’t kill you,” she adds.

“And y’all gave the man a concussion,” a male bystander shouts.

The witness who posted the video declined to speak with AP or provide consent for the video’s publication, but Castañeda Mondragón confirmed he is the handcuffed man seen in the recording.

At least one ICE officer later told staff at the medical center that Castañeda Mondragón “got his [expletive] rocked,” according to court documents filed by a lawyer seeking his release and nurses who spoke with AP.

AP interviewed a doctor and five nurses about Castañeda Mondragón’s treatment at Hennepin County Medical Center and the presence of ICE officers inside the hospital. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss patient care and feared retaliation. AP also consulted an outside physician, who affirmed the injuries were inconsistent with an accidental fall or running into a wall.

Minnesota state law requires health professionals to report to law enforcement any wounds that could have been perpetrated as part of a crime.

A hospital spokeswoman declined to say last week whether anyone at the facility had done so. However, after the Jan. 31 publication of AP’s initial story about Castañeda Mondragón’s beating and arrest, hospital administrators opened an internal inquiry seeking to determine which staff members have spoken to the media, according to internal communications viewed by AP.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz posted a link to AP’s prior story about Castañeda Mondragón, but his office has not said whether state authorities would pursue answers.

“Law enforcement cannot be lawless,” Walz wrote in the post on X. “Thousands of aggressive, untrained agents of the federal government continue to injure and terrorize Minnesotans. This must end.”

Castañeda Mondragón’s arrest came a day after the slaying of Renee Good, the first  of  two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis by immigration officers, triggering widespread public protests.

Calls for accountability

Minnesota congressional leaders and other elected officials, including St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, called last week for an investigation of Castañeda Mondragón’s injuries.

The Ramsey County attorney’s office, which oversees St. Paul, urged Castañeda Mondragón to file a police report to prompt an investigation. He said he plans to file a complaint. A St. Paul police spokesperson said the department would investigate “all alleged crimes that are reported to us.”

While the Trump administration insists ICE limits its operations to immigrants with violent rap sheets, Castañeda Mondragón has no criminal record.

“We are seeing a repeated pattern of Trump Administration officials attempting to lie and gaslight the American people when it comes to the cruelty of this ICE operation in Minnesota,” U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, said in a statement.

Rep. Kelly Morrison, another Democrat and a doctor, recently toured the Whipple Building, the ICE facility at Ft. Snelling. She said she saw severe overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and an almost complete lack of medical care.

“If any one of our police officers did this, you know what just happened in Minnesota with George Floyd, we hold them accountable,” said Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum, whose district includes St. Paul.

A native of Veracruz, Mexico, Castañeda Mondragón came to Minnesota nearly four years ago on a temporary work visa and found jobs as a driver and roofer. He uses his earnings to support his elderly father, who is disabled and diabetic, and his 10-year-old daughter.

On the day of his arrest, he was running errands with a friend when they suddenly found themselves surrounded by ICE agents. The agents began breaking the windows and opening the doors of the vehicle. He said the first person who hit him “got ugly with me for being Mexican” and not having documents showing his immigration status.

About four hours after his arrest, court records show, Castañeda Mondragón was taken to an emergency room in the suburb of Edina with swelling and bruising around his right eye and bleeding. He was then transferred to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, where he told staff he had been “dragged and mistreated by federal agents,” before his condition deteriorated, court records show.

A week into his hospitalization, caregivers described him as minimally responsive. As his condition slowly improved, hospital staff handed him his cellphone, and he spoke with his child in Mexico, whom he could not remember.

“I am your daughter,” she told him. “You left when I was 6 years old.”

His head injuries erased past experiences that for his daughter are unforgettable, including birthday parties and the day he left for the United States. She’s been trying to revive his memory in daily calls.

“When I turned 5, you taught me how to dance for the first time,” she reminded him recently.

“All these moments, really, for me, have been forgotten,″ he said.

He showed gradual improvement and, to the surprise of some who treated him, was released from the hospital on Jan. 27.

Long recovery lies ahead

He faces a long recovery and an uncertain future. Questions loom about whether he will be able to continue to support his family back in Mexico. “My family depends on me,” he said.

Though his bruises have faded, the effects of his traumatic brain injuries linger. In addition to the problems with his memory, he also has issues with balance and coordination that could prove debilitating for a man whose work requires going up and down ladders. He said he is unable to bathe himself without help.

“I can’t get on a roof now,” he said.

Castañeda Mondragón, who does not have health insurance, said doctors have told him he needs ongoing care. Unable to earn a living, he is relying on support from co-workers and members of the Minneapolis-St. Paul community who are raising money to help provide food, housing and medical care. He has launched a GoFundMe.

Still, he hopes to stay in the U.S. and to provide again someday for his loved ones. He differentiates between people in Minnesota, where he said he has felt welcome, and the federal officers who beat him.

“It’s immense luck to have survived, to be able to be in this country again, to be able to heal, and to try to move forward,” he said. “For me, it’s the best luck in the world.”

But when he closes his eyes at night, the fear that ICE officers will come for him dominates his dreams. He is now terrified to leave his apartment, he said.

“You’re left with the nightmare of going to work and being stopped,” Castañeda Mondragón said, “or that you’re buying your food somewhere, your lunch, and they show up and stop you again. They hit you.”

Brook, Biesecker, Mustian and Attanasio write for the Associated Press and reported from Minneapolis, Washington, New York and Seattle, respectively.