Laotian man freed from eSwatini jail 14 months after US third-country deportation
A Laotian citizen deported by the United States to eSwatini under Donald Trump administration’s immigration crackdown was released from a maximum-security prison in the African nation on Sunday after being held there for more than a year, his lawyer said. Phone Chomsavanh was among five immigrants deported to eSwatini – where he has no ties – in July 2025, in the early days of the Trump…
Phone Chomsavanh, a Laotian citizen, was released from a maximum-security prison in eSwatini after being held there for over a year. He was among five immigrants deported to eSwatini in July 2025 under the Trump administration's third-country deportation program. Chomsavanh had served his sentence in the US and had no ties to eSwatini, where he was held without any prior notice, hearing or chance to object.
His lawyer, Tin Thanh Nguyen, stated that Chomsavanh had been deported to eSwatini without being informed of the destination until shortly before a military cargo plane carrying him and other deportees landed there. Chomsavanh, born in a refugee camp in Thailand, moved to the US when he was seven years old. The eSwatini government has not yet acknowledged his release.
Since the start of the third-country deportation program last year, around 500 immigrants have been deported to African countries that are not their home nations.
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