US Judge Orders Return of Gay Man Unlawfully Deported to Equatorial Guinea
On Tuesday, October 6, 2026, U.S. District Judge John C. Hinderaker in Arizona ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to facilitate the release and return to the United States of 31-year-old Egyptian native Ahmed Soliman, according to Reuters. Soliman, who is openly gay, was summarily removed in late April to Equatorial Guinea—a Central African nation with which he has no personal, familial, or cultural ties—under third-country deportation arrangements.
Soliman was brought to the United States from Egypt by his parents when he was four years old and grew up in Phoenix as a lawful permanent resident. In 2023, following convictions for assault and drug possession, he lost his green card and became subject to removal proceedings. However, a U.S. immigration judge had previously granted him relief barring his deportation to Egypt under the Convention Against Torture, finding that he faced a severe risk of persecution and death due to his homosexuality and his parents’ political opposition activities.
Despite the judicial order protecting him from return to Egypt, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) transferred Soliman to Equatorial Guinea as part of the Donald Trump administration’s policy of deporting non-citizens to third nations to expedite removals. The transfer was carried out before Soliman’s pending administrative and legal appeals were resolved. In Malabo, the country’s capital, Soliman and other deportees were held under armed guard at the Bamy Hotel. In early September, after an altercation in which local police drew firearms on migrants and demanded money, Soliman provided video evidence of the abuse to journalists. Shortly after the report was published, Equatorial Guinean security forces arrested him, placed a hood over his head, beat him, and detained him incommunicado without legal counsel, adequate food, or water at the La Luna gendarmerie.
Judge Hinderaker ruled that the federal government’s actions violated Soliman’s Fifth Amendment constitutional right to due process, inflicting ongoing and irreparable harm. The court ordered DHS to take all reasonable steps to secure his release from custody, issue the necessary travel documentation, and transport him to a U.S. port of entry at government expense. The judge also required federal authorities to file status reports on his whereabouts and well-being every three days. While the ruling does not restore his green card or grant permanent status, it returns his case to the legal process, ensuring that any future removal attempt must include a meaningful credible-fear screening or relocation to a genuinely safe third country.
Third-country deportation agreements have drawn sharp criticism from civil liberties groups and international legal scholars. Critics caution that sending deportees to countries with weak judicial oversight and poor human rights records risks “chain refoulement”—the subsequent expulsion of individuals back to their countries of origin in evasion of U.S. court orders—while exposing migrants to arbitrary detention and physical abuse.
Previously, Uránia reported on Swiss authorities rejecting an asylum application from a persecuted Russian gay couple, examined Catholic initiatives supporting LGBT refugees, and analyzed the legal challenges facing sexual minority asylum seekers in South Africa.
