Woman Deported Despite Court Protection Order, Forced to Hide in Morocco

A 21-year-old Moroccan woman who received legal protection from a U.S. immigration judge was still deported to a third country before being sent back to Morocco, where she now lives in hiding. The Trump administration has deported dozens of people to third countries despite court orders protecting them from deportation to their home nations.

A young woman seeking asylum in the United States found herself back in Morocco and living in fear, despite receiving legal protection from deportation by a federal immigration judge.

Farah, a 21-year-old who fled Morocco due to violence from her family over her sexual orientation, experienced what immigration attorneys call a legal workaround that bypassed court-ordered protections. Homosexuality remains criminalized in Morocco, carrying potential prison sentences of up to three years.

“It is hard to live and work with the fear of being tracked once again by my family,” Farah explained to reporters, requesting only her first name be used due to safety concerns. “But there is nothing I can do. I have to work.”

Her ordeal began in Morocco, where she faced brutal treatment from both her own family and her partner’s relatives after their relationship was discovered. Following beatings and death threats, she escaped the country with her partner, obtaining Brazilian visas before making the dangerous journey through six nations to reach the U.S. border.

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

After arriving in early 2025, Farah spent nearly a year in immigration detention facilities in Arizona and Louisiana. She described harsh conditions, including inadequate heating and poor medical treatment.

“It was very cold,” she recalled about the detention experience. “And we only had very thin blankets.”

While her asylum request was ultimately rejected, Farah received a crucial victory in August when a federal immigration judge issued a protection order specifically barring her deportation to Morocco, determining such action would put her life at risk. Her partner faced a different outcome, being denied both asylum and protection before deportation.

Just three days before a scheduled hearing regarding her potential release, immigration officials took Farah into custody and transported her to Cameroon, a nation she had never visited and where homosexuality is also illegal. She was placed in a detention facility in the capital city of Yaounde.

“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 explained. Authorities subsequently sent her to Morocco.

Immigration attorney Alma David, who works with the U.S.-based Novo Legal Group and helped verify Farah’s situation, described the practice as exploiting a legal gap in the system.

“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 stated.

According to attorney Joseph Awah Fru, who represents deportees in Cameroon, all nine individuals on the first deportation flight in January had received judicial protection orders. The facility currently houses 15 deportees from various African nations, none of whom are Cameroonian citizens.

A second flight arrived Monday carrying eight additional people, including two women from Ghana and Congo who claim they also possessed protection orders.

The Department of Homeland Security defended the deportation strategy, stating it applies existing law regardless of judicial findings about individuals’ right to remain in the country. Officials assert that third-country agreements maintain constitutional due process requirements.

“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,” the department declared.

The State Department declined to discuss details of diplomatic communications with other governments regarding the deportation arrangements.

David criticized the limited options presented to deportees, arguing that asylum claims weren’t clearly explained as alternatives to returning home.

“They were given two impossible choices,” David said. “This was before the lawyer had access to them. They’d been alone there in that facility without any help from anybody or any indication that there was gonna be an option other than going back to their home countries.”

The Trump administration has established third-country deportation agreements with at least seven African nations, including South Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea. Some countries have received millions in compensation, though details of the Cameroon agreement remain undisclosed.

Recent analysis by Democratic Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff indicates the administration has spent at least $40 million deporting approximately 300 migrants to countries other than their homelands. Internal documents suggest 47 additional third-country agreements are under negotiation.

The International Organization for Migration, a United Nations-affiliated group, acknowledged awareness of the deportations and described its role as providing information to help people make informed decisions about returning to their origin countries voluntarily.

Now back in Morocco, Farah expressed frustration with how U.S. officials characterize people in her situation as security threats.

“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.”