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A Cambodian man deported by the US said he would have accepted being sent to Cambodia, but instead ended up imprisoned in Eswatini, a country he knew so little about that when he first read the name he thought it was another immigration detention centre in Louisiana.
Pheap Rom, who had been convicted of attempted murder, was one of 10 deportees sent to Eswatini by the US in October 2025. They joined a group of five men, from Cambodia, Cuba, Jamaica, Vietnam and Yemen, who were deported to the small southern African country in July. All were sent to a maximum-security prison. Rom was deported from Eswatini to Cambodia in March.
The US government labelled the men dangerous criminals. Their lawyers said they had already served sentences for crimes committed in the US.
Rom served a 15-year sentence in the US for four counts of attempted murder, after taking a plea deal. Shortly after his sentencing, he was told he would be deported to Cambodia, which he said he had accepted.
“Even if you were a convicted felon, at the end of the day we still deserve due process. If our due process is taken away, anybody else’s due process can be taken away,” said Rom, who arrived in the US as a refugee in 1985, aged three. “I’m not disputing the fact that I got a final order and I’m to be removed and I’m content with that. As long as I’m being removed to the country that I’m supposed to be removed to.
“I might be free, but I want people to know that there’s still people that are still in prison in a third country,” he said.
Donald Trump’s administration has deported dozens of people to third countries from which they do not originate. African countries that have signed deportation deals include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda.
Following Rom’s release from prison, he said he had spent almost 11 months detained in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities. However, Rom said he expected to be sent to Cambodia, which he had never visited, having been born in a Thai refugee camp.
Rom’s comments offer a rare insight into the process of expulsions from the US to third countries. He said he had no opportunity to speak to a lawyer after learning he would be sent to Eswatini and his repeated attempts to object to being sent there were fruitless. Instead, he was told: “Pack your shit and get the fuck out.” The 10 men were shackled and packed tightly into the back of a jet for 21 hours, he said.
Staff on the flight said that, to their knowledge, the men would be free when they landed in Eswatini, a country of 1.3 million people landlocked by South Africa and Mozambique. Instead, according to Rom, they were greeted by lines of military personnel armed with machine guns and taken directly to the Matsapha correctional complex, a maximum-security prison.
The US Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a prior statement about the first five men to be deported to Eswatini, a spokesperson said: “If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, you will be removed … These criminal illegal aliens sent to Eswatini are convicted murderers, paedophiles, and gang members.
“Every single one of these criminal illegal aliens had a final deportation order. The fact of the matter is those who are in our country illegally have a choice – they can leave the country voluntarily or be arrested and deported.”
Rom said the group were only given a roll of toilet paper and a bar of soap each per week. Initially, the men shared clothes, because some only had the clothes they arrived wearing. At first, he said, they were only allowed 15 minutes outside each day and one phone call a week, while a local lawyer was barred from seeing them.
The mental health of individuals who feared returning to their countries due to human rights concerns, or whose return was complicated by political factors between the US and their government, deteriorated, Rom said.
One went on hunger strike for 30 days. “It was making them go crazy,” he said.
Eventually, the detainees were allowed to use mobile phones, to spend more time outside their cells and to go to a shop once a week.
Rom was deported to Cambodia on 26 March, six months after fellow deportee Orville Etoria was returned to Jamaica. The Jamaican and Cambodian governments both said they would have accepted their nationals directly from the US.
In March, Eswatini said four more people had been deported there from the US, one from Tanzania, one from Sudan and two from Somalia.
Thabile Mdluli, a spokesperson for Eswatini’s government, which received $5.1m (£3.8m) from the US to accept up to 160 deportees, said: “The government of the Kingdom of Eswatini has made every reasonable effort, in accordance with national laws and international obligations, to ensure that the third-country nationals received from the United States government are accommodated in conditions that respect their fundamental rights and human dignity.
“Eswatini remains committed to upholding the dignity, safety, and wellbeing of all individuals within its borders.”
