2026年5月1日 / 美国东部时间上午11:56 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
何塞·尤加尔-克鲁兹（Jose Yugar-Cruz）在近两年前的七月酷暑中抵达亚利桑那州-墨西哥边境时，他对联邦法庭说，他立即向美国移民和海关执法局（ICE）投案并寻求庇护。
移民法庭数据显示，尽管他在2025年1月的庇护申请被驳回，但他成为了去年约4000名获得法庭禁令、阻止被遣返回国的移民之一——因为法官认定，若被遣返，他们极有可能面临酷刑或迫害。
但这场所谓的胜利之后，他陷入了长达一年的法律纠纷，期间一直被拘留。周一，一名联邦法官为移民海关执法局将尤加尔-克鲁兹遣返回刚果民主共和国扫清了道路。
“我对发生在我身上的事感到无比、无比崩溃，”37岁的尤加尔-克鲁兹在爱荷华州的移民海关执法局拘留中心用西班牙语对哥伦比亚广播公司新闻说。“那是一个我一无所知的国家，我在那里没有家人，我不会说他们的语言——据我所知，他们好像说法语。我不知道那里的流程会是怎样，我不知道自己会不会继续被关押。”
“我一直觉得这是一场噩梦，总有一天会醒来，”他补充道。尤加尔-克鲁兹是在与哥伦比亚广播公司新闻和《明尼阿波利斯明星论坛报》的联合采访中发表上述言论的。
像尤加尔-加尔-克鲁兹获得的这种驱逐禁令，并不会为移民在美国获得合法居留身份开辟途径，且允许将其遣送至第三国。但移民政策专家对哥伦比亚广播公司新闻表示，在历届前任政府时期，将移民遣送至他们并非原籍的国家难度极大，因此大多数获得此类保护的移民最终都会无限期留在美国。
“特朗普政府正试图加快这一程序，在某些方面还特意让移民程序更具惩罚性，以此传递信号，”无党派智库移民政策研究所的高级政策分析师阿里尔·鲁伊斯·索托（Ariel Ruiz Soto）说道。
从去年二月开始，特朗普政府发起了一项协调行动，与全球各国签署协议，以接收第三国被遣返者，同时致力于逮捕并驱逐那些获得驱逐禁令的移民。
“我们正在与其他国家沟通，说‘我们想把一些最恶劣的人渣送到你们国家。能不能帮我们这个忙？’”国务卿马可·卢比奥（Marco Rubio）在特朗普重返白宫后的首次内阁会议上说道。“离美国越远越好，这样他们就没法再越境回来了。”
根据法庭记录和国会报告，无论有无犯罪记录的被遣返者都曾被送往加纳、喀麦隆、南苏丹和萨尔瓦多等国。尽管美国法官在尤加尔-克鲁兹这类案件中裁定，这些移民若被遣返原籍国会面临酷刑或迫害，但许多人最终还是被送回了本国。
移民海关执法局未回应就尤加尔-克鲁兹的案件或其第三国遣返举措置评的请求。法庭记录显示，移民海关执法局称刚果民主共和国“提供了外交保证”，即被遣送至该国的人员不会遭受迫害或酷刑。
刚果民主共和国是28个接收第三国被遣返者的最新国家之一。据《纽约时报》率先报道，本届政府还在考虑一项计划，将在卡塔尔与美军并肩作战的1000名阿富汗撤离人员重新安置到刚果民主共和国。这个位于卡塔尔的营地最初旨在作为快速处理枢纽，为符合条件的难民在美国获得永久合法身份。
据刚果民主共和国政府发布的公告，4月17日，共有15名南美被遣返者抵达该国。这份用法语撰写的公告称，这项安排“严格具有过渡性、临时性且有时间限制”。
监督第三国遣返行动的组织之一、难民国际组织美洲和欧洲事务主任雅埃尔·沙彻（Yael Schacher）表示，这是第三国遣返协议的常见特征。
“这些协议对外卖给其他国家的说法都是临时的，”她在接受哥伦比亚广播公司新闻采访时说道。“这些人中绝大多数最终都会离开，或者被遣返原籍。”
这些南美被遣返者对美国国家公共广播电台（NPR）表示，他们除了返回本国之外，没有其他可行选择。据路透社报道，其中至少一名来自哥伦比亚的女性已获得免受驱逐的法律保护。
“这就是根本问题所在，”沙彻说道。“这本质上是绕过了那些保护措施。”
尤加尔-克鲁兹要求隐瞒其原籍国以保护自己，他从南美逃离。根据法庭记录，自2025年年初以来，移民海关执法局曾多次尝试将他遣返至阿根廷、智利、巴拉圭、墨西哥和加拿大，但均未成功。
今年早些时候，一名联邦法院裁定尤加尔-克鲁兹长达17个月的拘留非法，他因此被移民海关执法局释放了三个月。但今年四月，在移民海关执法局收到刚果民主共和国将接收尤加尔-克鲁兹的通知后，他再次被拘留。
“我刚刚开始过上自由的生活，但他们又把我抓了回去，”他说。“我在被拘留期间失去了母亲。我没办法帮助我的孩子们。我现在还被关在这里。我感觉自己像个毫无价值的人。”
根据法庭记录，尤加尔-克鲁兹原本在四月中旬飞往刚果民主共和国的首批遣返航班的名单上，但他正在进行的联邦法庭诉讼程序推迟了他的遣返。
第三国遣返在去年的总遣返人数中只占很小一部分。移民政策研究所估计，2025年1月20日至12月31日期间，美国国土安全部约将1.5万人遣送至第三国，其中1.3万人被送往墨西哥。美国国土安全部在12月初表示，自特朗普重返白宫以来，该局总共已遣返超过60.5万人。
鲁伊斯·索托表示，这一举措旨在威慑在美国境内以及可能考虑非法入境的移民。
“哪怕只有少数人被铐着送往其他国家，这也比过去更能让人们直观地感受到恐惧，从而打消念头：‘这可能会发生在我身上’，”他说道。
美国国土安全部目前正面临一场由获得驱逐禁令的移民提起的集体诉讼，原告辩称，在被遣送至第三国之前，移民应有机会提出在该国可能遭受迫害或酷刑的担忧。尽管下级法院在诉讼审理期间下令暂停遣返，但美国最高法院于2025年6月解除了该暂停令。
今年二月，一家地区法院裁定美国国土安全部的第三国遣返做法非法，但该裁决在政府上诉期间被暂停执行，遣返行动得以继续进行。
审理尤加尔-克鲁兹案件的联邦法官援引了最高法院的裁决，称其“几乎对尤加尔-克鲁兹的索赔构成致命打击”，导致他“别无选择，只能驳回”释放他的动议。
尤加尔-克鲁兹表示，他的遣返可能随时会进行，但移民海关执法局的特工并未告知他具体的出发日期。他的律师艾莉森·格里菲斯（Alison Griffith）表示，她的团队曾要求移民海关执法局考虑将他送往离家乡更近的西班牙语国家，而非刚果民主共和国，但遭到了拒绝。
“我仍然抱有希望，或许我的案件能出现奇迹，他们能再次给我自由，”尤加尔-克鲁兹说道。
“我感谢所有帮助过我的人，”他补充道，指的是在他获释的几个月里，围绕在他身边的爱荷华州维权人士。“他们就像填补了我母亲离开后在我心中留下的空白——这些人填补了它。”
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/army-sergeants-wife-still-faces-deportation-to-mexico-after-confusion-over-possible-release/
South American man facing ICE deportation to the Congo says he feels “like a person who has no value”
May 1, 2026 / 11:56 AM EDT / CBS News
When Jose Yugar-Cruz arrived at the Arizona-Mexico border in the July heat nearly two years ago, he told a federal court, he immediately turned himself into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and asked for asylum.
In January 2025, though he was denied asylum, he became one of about 4,000 migrants last year to be granted a court order preventing their deportation to their home country because a judge found it more likely than not that they would face torture or persecution if returned, immigration court data shows.
But the supposed victory was followed by a yearlong legal battle during which he remained detained. On Monday, a federal judge cleared the way for ICE to deport Yugar-Cruz to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“I feel truly, truly devastated by what is happening to me,” Yugar-Cruz, 37, told CBS News from ICE detention in Iowa, speaking in Spanish. “It is a country I don’t know, I have no family there, I don’t speak their language — as far as I understand I think it’s French. I don’t know what the process will be like there, I don’t know if I’ll continue to be detained.”
“I keep thinking it’s a nightmare that I will wake up from,” he added. Yugar-Cruz spoke in a joint interview with CBS News and The Minneapolis Star Tribune.
A withholding of removal order like the one Yugar-Cruz received doesn’t create a pathway to legal residence in the United States and allows for third-country deportations. But under previous administrations, the difficulty of deporting migrants to countries they aren’t from meant that most who were granted such protections would end up staying in the U.S. indefinitely, immigration policy experts told CBS News.
“The Trump administration is trying to speed up the process and in some ways trying to go out of their way to make the process punitive for migrants to try to send a message,” said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
Starting last February, the Trump administration began a coordinated push to sign agreements with countries around the world to accept third-country deportees while seeking to arrest and remove those granted withholding of removal orders.
“We are working with other countries to say, ‘We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries. Will you do that as a favor to us?’” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during a Cabinet meeting after President Trump’s first 100 days back in office. “And the further away from America the better, so they can’t come back across the border.”
Deportees — with and without criminal records — have been sent to countries including Ghana, Cameroon, South Sudan and El Salvador. Many were ultimately sent back to their home countries, according to court records and a congressional report, despite U.S. judges’ rulings in cases like Yugar-Cruz’s affirming they would face torture or persecution there.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment on Yugar-Cruz’s case or its third-country removal practices. Court records show that ICE said the DRC “provided diplomatic assurances” that deportees sent there would not be persecuted or tortured.
The DRC is one of the latest of 28 countries to accept third-country deportees. The administration is also considering a plan to resettle 1,000 Afghan evacuees living in Qatar who fought alongside U.S. troops to the DRC, The New York Times first reported. The Qatar-based camp was initially intended as an expedited processing hub to grant eligible refugees permanent legal status in the U.S.
On April 17, a group of 15 South American deportees arrived in the DRC, according to a government announcement from the country. The announcement, written in French, said the arrangement is “strictly transitory, temporary, and limited in time.”
This is a common feature of third-country deportation agreements, said Yael Schacher, director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International, one of the groups monitoring third-country deportations.
“They’re sold to other countries as temporary,” she told CBS News of the agreements. “The vast majority of these folks are going to leave, or be repatriated.”
The South American deportees told NPR that they were given no viable options other than to return to their home country. At least one, a woman from Colombia, has been granted legal protections from deportation, Reuters reported.
“That is where the fundamental problem comes,” Schacher said. “It’s sort of an end run around those protections.”
Yugar-Cruz, who asked that his native country be withheld to protect him, fled from South America. Since the start of 2025, ICE tried unsuccessfully to remove him to Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Mexico and Canada, according to court records.
Earlier this year, Yugar-Cruz was released from ICE detention for three months after a federal court ruled his detention, which had spanned 17 months, was unlawful, court records show. But in April, after ICE received notice that the DRC would accept Yugar-Cruz, he was detained again.
“I was starting to live in freedom, but they detained me again,” he said. “I lost my mother while detained. I can’t help my children. I’m here detained. I feel like a person who has no value.”
Yugar-Cruz was originally on the manifest for the first deportation flight to the DRC that took place in mid-April, according to court records, but his ongoing federal court case delayed his removal.
Third-country deportations made up a small fraction of those deported last year. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that the Department of Homeland Security deported about 15,000 people to third countries between Jan. 20 and Dec. 31, 2025, of which 13,000 were sent to Mexico. DHS said in early December it had deported a total of more than 605,000 people since Mr. Trump returned to office.
Ruiz Soto said the tactic is intended to deter migrants, both in the U.S. and those who may be considering entering illegally.
“Even small numbers of people being sent to other countries in chains, that made it much more visible than in the past for people to be essentially scared into saying ‘this could be me, this could happen to me,’” he said.
DHS is currently facing a class-action lawsuit from those granted withholding of removal, arguing that before being removed to a third country, immigrants should be given an opportunity to raise concerns of being persecuted or tortured in that country. While a lower court placed a stay on removals while the litigation was pending, the Supreme Court lifted the stay in June 2025.
In February of this year, a district court ruled that DHS’s third-country removal practices were unlawful, but the ruling was stayed pending the government’s appeal, allowing the deportations to continue.
The federal judge in Yugar-Cruz’s case cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in his decision, describing it as “all but fatal to Yugar-Cruz’s claim,” leaving him with “little choice but to deny” the motion to release him from detention.
Yugar-Cruz’s deportation could take place any day now, but ICE agents have not given him a date for his departure, he said. Alison Griffith, his attorney, said her team asked that ICE consider sending him to a Spanish-speaking country closer to home instead of the DRC, but she said they refused.
“I still have faith that maybe some miracle could happen in my case and that they would give me my freedom again,” Yugar-Cruz said.
“I am grateful to all those people who helped me,” he added, referring to the Iowa-based advocates who rallied around him during the months he was released. “It is as if they filled that empty space that my mother left in me — those people filled it.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/army-sergeants-wife-still-faces-deportation-to-mexico-after-confusion-over-possible-release/
