deports

Israeli army and settlers have carried out 158 attacks against olive pickers since the start of the current season

Israel has ordered the deportation of 32 foreign activists supporting olive-harvesting Palestinian farmers amid mounting Israeli army and settler attacks in the occupied West Bank two weeks into the harvesting season.

Israeli news outlet Israel Hayom reported that the activists were arrested last week near the town of Burin, in the Nablus Governorate, as they protested an Israeli general order stating that only those working on the harvest are allowed on the land during the harvesting period.

Israeli army and settlers have carried out 158 attacks against olive pickers since the start of the current season, according to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission.

The assaults included a range of violations, including beatings, mass arrests and shootings. At least 74 attacks targeted olive-growing lands, including 29 cases where trees and farmland were cut, bulldozed or uprooted. A total of 765 olive trees were destroyed.

The UN and rights groups have said Palestinian farmers face a heightened risk while gathering olives.

“Settler violence has skyrocketed in scale and frequency,” Ajith Sunghay, the head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territory, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Two weeks into the start of the 2025 harvest, we have already seen severe attacks by armed settlers against Palestinian men, women, children and foreign solidarity activists.”

The UN estimates that 80,000 to 100,000 Palestinian families rely on the olive harvest for their livelihoods, Sunghay said.

On Wednesday, a statement by Interior Minister Yariv Levin and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir stated that the activists would be deported over their alleged affiliation with the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC).

A 99-year entry ban was imposed on the activists, the statement said, without specifying their identities, nationalities or where they would be deported to.

Settler violence against Palestinians has worsened since the start of the war in Gaza.

More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers since October 7, 2023, in the occupied West Bank, according to the United Nations, and thousands of Palestinians were forcibly displaced due to Israeli settler attacks, movement restrictions and home demolitions.

The UN says the first half of 2025 has seen 757 settler attacks causing casualties or property damage – a 13 percent increase compared with the same period last year.

On Sunday, a settler attack in the town of Turmus Aya was captured on camera and showed Israeli settlers descending on Palestinian olive harvesters and activists and beating them with clubs. One woman was taken to the hospital with serious injuries.

At least 36 people, including journalists, were injured earlier this month when settlers attacked Palestinian farmers harvesting olives in the Jabal Qamas area of Beita, beating them and setting fire to three vehicles.

More than 700,000 settlers live in 150 settlements and 128 outposts – both illegal under international law – dotting the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Settlers are often armed and frequently accompanied or protected by Israeli soldiers.

In addition to destroying Palestinian property, they have carried out arson attacks and killed Palestinian residents.

Joy turned to devastation for many after Israel added a twist to its release of almost 2,000 imprisoned Palestinians as part of the ceasefire deal. It’s sending 154 into exile, refusing to let them back into Gaza or the occupied West Bank.

Country steps up crackdown on online scammers, who lure victims using promises of romance to invest in fake cryptocurrency investments.

Nigeria has deported 102 foreign nationals, including 60 Chinese and 39 people from the Philippines, who were convicted of “cyber-terrorism and internet fraud”, according to the country’s anticorruption agency.

The announcement by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Thursday comes as the country steps up a crackdown on online scam operations, which lured victims through online romances to hand over cash for fake cryptocurrency investments.

EFCC spokesman Dele Oyewale later told the AFP news agency that another group of 39 Filipinos, 10 Chinese and two people from Kazakhstan had also been deported since August 15.

More deportations were also scheduled in the coming days, he added.

The anticorruption agency released pictures of Asian men wearing surgical face masks, lined up at airport check-in counters.

The deportees were among 792 suspected cybercriminals arrested in a single operation in the affluent Victoria Island area of Lagos in December. At least 192 of those arrested were foreign nationals, of whom 148 were Chinese, the EFCC said.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has a reputation for internet fraudsters known in local slang as “Yahoo Boys”, and the EFCC has busted several hideouts where young crime suspects learn online scamming skills.

According to the agency, foreign gangs recruit Nigerian accomplices to find victims online through phishing scams. The attackers typically try to deceive victims into transferring money or revealing sensitive information such as passwords to accounts.

The scams target mostly Americans, Canadians, Mexicans and Europeans, the EFCC said.

Experts say the fraudulent investment schemes used by cyber-scammers have become increasingly sophisticated and dynamic as they leverage the latest technologies and digital tools.

The schemes ultimately leave victims – many of whom invest their savings, business capital, and borrowed money – unable to do anything but watch their hard-earned money disappear.

Experts also warn that foreign “cybercrime syndicates” have set up shop in Nigeria to exploit its weak cybersecurity systems.

The government of the tiny, landlocked African country of Eswatini has confirmed that it received five individuals deported from the United States under President Donald Trump.

In a statement on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Eswatini government said the deportations were “the result of months of robust high-level engagements”.

“The five prisoners are in the country and are housed in Correctional facilities within isolated units, ‘where similar offenders are kept’,” spokesperson Thabile Mdluli wrote.

But she appeared to concede there were human rights concerns about accepting deported individuals whose countries of origin were not Eswatini.

“As a responsible member of the global community, the Kingdom of Eswatini adheres to international agreements and diplomatic protocols regarding the repatriation of individuals, ensuring that due process and respect for human rights is followed,” Mdluli said.

Her statement also indicated that Eswatini would work with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) “to facilitate the transit of the inmates to their countries of origin”.

The deportations are part of a wider trend under the Trump administration of deporting foreign nationals to countries outside of their own.

The White House has argued that these third-country deportations are necessary for individuals whose home countries will not accept them. But critics have maintained that the Trump administration is relying on countries with documented histories of human rights abuses to accept deportees, thereby subjecting them to the risk of inhumane treatment.

There is also concern that deportations under Trump are happening so swiftly that those facing deportation are unable to challenge their removal in court, violating their rights to due process.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson from the US Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, revealed the recent deportations to Eswatini, identifying the affected individuals as citizens of Laos, Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba and Yemen.

“A safe third country deportation flight to Eswatini in Southern Africa has landed,” McLaughlin wrote on social media. “This flight took individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.”

She asserted that the deportees had been convicted of crimes like murder, child rape and assault, calling them “depraved monsters” who had “been terrorizing American communities”.

The Trump administration has likened immigration into the US to an “invasion”, and Trump himself has repeatedly tied undocumented people to criminality, though studies indicate they commit fewer crimes than US-born citizens.

Since taking office for a second term in January, Trump has embarked on a campaign of mass deportation. As part of that push, his government has deported alleged criminals to third-party countries like El Salvador and South Sudan.

In March, for instance, the Trump administration deported an estimated 200 Venezuelans to El Salvador, where their heads were shaved and they were incarcerated in the country’s Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT), a maximum-security prison where conditions have been likened to torture.

The Trump administration reportedly paid nearly $6m for El Salvador to imprison the men.

Then, in May, reports emerged that the Trump administration planned to deport immigrants to Libya.

A federal court quickly blocked the deportation, and government officials in Libya denied the reports. But lawyers for the immigrants involved told US media that a flight nearly took off and was instead stalled on an airport tarmac as a result of the court order.

Later that same month, a flight did leave the US with eight deportees destined for South Sudan, a country that the US State Department itself concedes has “significant human rights issues”.

Those concerns include credible reports of extrajudicial killings, torture and “life-threatening prison conditions”. The State Department discourages travel to the country.

The flight to South Sudan was ultimately diverted to Djibouti after a federal court in Massachusetts determined that the eight men on board were not given an adequate opportunity to contest their deportations. The men were from countries including Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Cuba and Vietnam.

But on June 23, the US Supreme Court issued a brief, unsigned order lifting the lower court’s ruling and allowing the deportation to South Sudan to proceed.

The Supreme Court’s three left-leaning justices, however, issued a blistering, 19-page dissent, calling the majority’s decision a “gross” abuse of the court’s power and denouncing the president’s actions as overreach.

“The Government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote.

“There is no evidence in this case that the Government ever did determine that the countries it designated (Libya, El Salvador, and South Sudan) ‘w[ould] not torture’ the plaintiffs.”

Critics have voiced similar concerns for the immigrants sent to Eswatini, a country of 1.23 million people located northeast of South Africa.

Eswatini is considered an absolute monarchy, and its leader, King Mswati III, has been accused of stamping out dissent through violence.

In 2021, for instance, security forces allegedly killed dozens of protesters involved in pro-democracy demonstrations. In the aftermath, several politicians were sentenced to decades in prison for inciting violence, a charge critics say was trumped up to silence opposition voices.

Still, on Wednesday, the government of Eswatini defended its commitment to human rights in its statement to the public.

It also said that the decision to accept the five deportees from the US was made for the benefit of both countries.

“The Kingdom of Eswatini and the United States of America have enjoyed fruitful bilateral relations spanning over five decades,” the statement said.

“As such, every agreement entered into is done with meticulous care and consideration, putting the interests of both nations at the forefront.”

A memo obtained by The Washington Post earlier this week signalled that Trump administration officials may knowingly be deporting individuals to countries where their human rights are not guaranteed.

That memo, dated July 9, acknowledged that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may remove non-citizens to third-party countries even when officials have not received credible diplomatic assurances against the use of torture or persecution, so long as certain other conditions were met.

Those deportations, the memo added, could take place with as little as six hours’ notice under “exigent circumstances”.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — The United States sent five migrants it describes as “barbaric” criminals to the African nation of Eswatini in an expansion of the Trump administration’s largely secretive third-country deportation program, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.

The U.S. has already deported eight men to another African country, South Sudan, after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on sending people to countries where they have no ties. The South Sudanese government has declined to say where those men, also described as violent criminals, are after it took custody of them nearly two weeks ago.

In a late-night post on X, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the five men sent to Eswatini, who are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos, had arrived on a plane, but didn’t say when or where.

She said they were all convicted criminals and “individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.”

The men “have been terrorizing American communities” but were now “off of American soil,” McLaughlin added.

McLaughlin said they had been convicted of crimes including murder and child rape and one was a “confirmed” gang member. Her social media posts included mug shots of the men and what she said were their criminal records and sentences. They were not named.

It was not clear if the men had been deported from prison or if they were detained in immigration operations, and the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t immediately respond to requests for clarification.

Four of the five countries where the men are from have historically been resistant to taking back some citizens when they’re deported from the U.S. That issue has been a reoccurring problem for Homeland Security even before the Trump administration. Some countries refuse to take back any of their citizens, while others won’t accept people who have committed crimes in the U.S.

Like in South Sudan, there was no immediate comment from Eswatini authorities over any deal to accept third-country deportees or what would happen to them in that country. Civic groups there raised concerns over the secrecy from a government long accused of clamping down on human rights.

“There has been a notable lack of official communication from the Eswatini government regarding any agreement or understanding with the U.S. to accept these deportees,” Ingiphile Dlamini, a spokesperson for the pro-democracy group SWALIMO, said in a statement sent to The Associated Press.

It wasn’t clear if they were being held in a detention center, what their legal status was or what Eswatini’s plans were for the deported men, he said.

An absolute monarchy

Eswatini, previously called Swaziland, is a country of about 1.2 million people between South Africa and Mozambique. It is one of the world’s last remaining absolute monarchies and the last in Africa. King Mswati III has ruled by decree since 1986.

Political parties are effectively banned and pro-democracy groups have said for years that Mswati III has crushed political dissent, sometimes violently.

Pro-democracy protests erupted in Eswatini in 2021, when dozens were killed, allegedly by security forces. Eswatini authorities have been accused of conducting political assassinations of pro-democracy activists and imprisoning others.

Because Eswatini is a poor country, it “may face significant strain in accommodating and managing individuals with complex backgrounds, particularly those with serious criminal convictions,” Dlamini said.

While the U.S. administration has hailed deportations as a victory for the safety and security of the American people, Dlamini said his organization wanted to know the plans for the five men sent to Eswatini and “any potential risks to the local population.”

U.S. is seeking more deals

The Trump administration has said it is seeking more deals with African nations to take deportees from the U.S. Leaders from some of the five West African nations who met last week with President Trump at the White House said the issue of migration and their countries possibly taking deportees from the U.S. was discussed.

Some nations have pushed back. Nigeria, which wasn’t part of that White House summit, said it has rejected pressure from the U.S. to take deportees who are citizens of other countries.

The U.S. also has sent hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama, but has identified Africa as a continent where it might find more governments willing to strike deportation agreements.

Rwanda’s foreign minister told the AP last month that talks were underway with the U.S. about a potential agreement to host deported migrants. A British government plan announced in 2022 to deport rejected asylum-seekers to Rwanda was ruled illegal by the U.K. Supreme Court last year.

‘Not a dumping ground’

The eight men deported by the U.S. to war-torn South Sudan, where they arrived early this month, previously spent weeks at a U.S. military base in nearby Djibouti, located on the northeast border of Ethiopia, as the case over the legality of sending them there played out.

The deportation flight to Eswatini is the first to a third country since the Supreme Court ruling cleared the way.

The South Sudanese government has not released details of its agreement with the U.S. to take deportees, nor has it said what will happen to the men. A prominent civil society leader there said South Sudan was “not a dumping ground for criminals.”

Analysts say some African nations might be willing to take third-country deportees in return for more favorable terms from the U.S. in negotiations over tariffs, foreign aid and investment, and restrictions on travel visas.

Imray and Gumede write for the Associated Press. Gumede reported from Johannesburg. AP writer Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report.

July 16 (UPI) — The Trump administration has deported five migrants convicted of violent crimes to the African nation of Eswatini, the Department of Homeland Security said.

The migrants from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Cuba and Yemen arrived in the small Southeast African nation Tuesday night, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said on social media, announcing that their flight had landed.

“This flight took individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them,” she said in a statement, adding that it was thanks to President Donald Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem that “they are off of American soil.”

The announcement marks the second instance of the Trump administration shipping migrants to a third country since the Supreme Court earlier this month said it could deport eight migrants to South Sudan.

The conservative-leaning Supreme Court ruling ended litigation over the legality of the United States deporting noncitizens to a third country other than their own without permitting them the opportunity to argue they would be tortured or receive degrading treatment in the new country.

The justices did not give a detailed explanation for their reasoning, though liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, arguing the Supreme Court’s refusal to justify its decision “is indefensible.”

“Today’s order clarifies only one thing: Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the Supreme Court on speed dial,” she wrote.

It was not clear when the United States made a deal with Eswatini to accept its deported migrants.

The majority of those who landed in Eswatini late Tuesday had been convicted of murder, among other charges. One migrant was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment for the sexual abuse of a minor.

The announcement comes amid reports that a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo states that “effective immediately” the Trump administration may deport migrants to a third country with as little as six hours’ notice as long as the receiving country has given the United States assurances that the deportee “will not be persecuted or tortured.”