Trump administration plans to send migrants to Libya on a military flight

The Trump government plans to transport a group of immigrants to Libya on an American military aircraft, according to American officials, another sharp escalation in a deportation program that has fueled widespread legal challenges and intense political debate.

The nationalities of the migrants were not immediately clear, but a flight to Libya with the deportees could, according to the officials who leave on Wednesday to Wednesday, who spoke about the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the operation.

The decision to send deportees to Libya was striking. The country has conflicts and human rights groups have called conditions in its network of migrant detention centers ‘horrible’ and ‘regrettable’.

The Libya surgery is in line with the efforts of the Trump government to not only ensure migrants again to enter the country illegally, but also to illegally send a strong message to those in the country that they can be deported to countries where they can be confronted with brutal conditions. Reuters earlier reported The possibility of a US Deportation flight to Libya.

The planning for the flight to Libya has been firmly detained and can still derail by logistical, legal or diplomatic obstacles.

The White House refused to comment. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to requests for comments.

The potential use of Libya comes as a destination after the administration has yielded an earlier furore by Turning off a group of Venezuelans to El Salvador, Where they are held in a prison with maximum security designed for terrorists.

President Trump and his assistants labeled men violent gang members and quoted a rarely used war in their wartime, a movement that has been challenged in the courts.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs warns against trips to Libya “due to crime, terrorism, non -depleted landmines, civil unrest, kidnapping and armed conflict.” The country remains divided after years of civil war after the overriding of 2011 of his old dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. A government recognized by the United Nations in Tripoli rules West-Libya, and another in Benghazi, led by the warlord Khalifa Haftar, controls the east.

The United States only have formal relationships with the Tripoli government. But the son of Mr. Haftar, Saddam, was in Washington last week, and Meeted various Trump administration officials. Mr. Trump had friendly transactions in his first term With Mr. Hafar, who controls the most lucrative oil fields of Libya.

Libya, an important transit point for Europe-related migrants, operates numerous detention facilities for refugees and migrants. Amnesty International Branded those sites “horrible” and “a Hellscape” In a report of 2021They found proof of “sexual violence, against men, women and children.” The Global Detention Project says that detained migrants in Libya endure ‘physical abuse and torture’, forced labor and even slavery.

Human rights groups say that European governments have been complicit in such a treatment by collaborating with Libya to go on their way to the continent and send them to the detention centers.

“I have been in those migrating prisons and it is not a place for migrants,” said Frederic Wehrey, a Libya expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It’s just a horrible place to dump a vulnerable person.”

Earlier this year, the Trump government deported several hundred people to Panama from countries in the eastern hemisphere, including Iran and China. The migrants, who said they did not know where they were going, were held in a hotel for a few days before they were taken to a camp near the jungle. Some migrants were later released from Panamanian custody.

Around the same time, American officials also deported a group of around 200 migrants to Costa Rica from countries on the eastern half -round, including Iran. A lawsuit was filed against the country that the deportations and subsequent detention in Costa Rica can “cause irreparable damage” for a group of children sent to the country.

After the United States had concluded a deal with El Salvador to take Venezuelan migrants and to lock them up, Minister of Foreign Affairs said Marco Rubio that he worked to protect similar agreements with additional countries.

“I am planning to continue to try to identify other countries that are willing to accept and prisoners as many gang members as we can send them,” Mr. Rubio told the New York Times.

The planned use of a military aircraft for the flight comes to Libya after the Ministry of Defense has helped transporting migrants to locations such as India, Guatemala and Ecuador.

At the end of March, a group of Venezuelan migrants from the Ministry of Defense flew to El Salvador without any staff from the Ministry of Interior Security in the plane, according to the court reports. The flight departed from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to El Salvador and included four Venezuelans. A government application indicated that the Ministry of Interior Security did not ‘direct’ the aircraft to increase for El Salvador.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.