Protesters hold placards as lead applicant and lawyer Mzwandile Masuku addresses them outside the court, after today’s hearing was postponed, in Mbabane, Eswatini, August 22, 2025. REUTERS/Zakhele Mabuza/File Photo
Five migrants deported by the Trump administration to the small southern African kingdom of Eswatini have won a legal battle for access to representation, after a court ruled the government could not deny them a lawyer who had been fighting for their rights without ever meeting them.
The ruling addresses a case that has drawn attention to Washington’s controversial immigration enforcement strategy of transferring foreign nationals to third-party countries — even those who had already completed prison sentences for crimes committed on U.S. soil.
Human rights lawyer Sibusiso Nhlabatsi had been pursuing the detainees’ case despite being blocked from any contact with them since their transfer from the United States to a Swazi jail in July. The government argued his representation was invalid because the detainees had not personally and specifically requested him. The court dismissed that reasoning outright.
“There can be no real harm in granting the Respondent access to the detainees,” the three-judge panel stated in their decision, adding pointedly: “If they do not wish to see the Respondent (they can) tell this to the Respondent to his face.”
The five are part of a broader group of at least 19 third-country nationals — originating from various countries across Africa, Asia and the Americas — transferred to Eswatini under a $5.1 million agreement struck with the Trump administration as part of its wider immigration crackdown. Similar arrangements have been made with other nations willing to accept U.S. deportees.
The legality of that bilateral deal has been challenged on both sides of the Atlantic, with lawyers in Eswatini and the United States questioning whether it is lawful to incarcerate individuals in a foreign nation for immigration violations when those people had already served their sentences in America. Last month, however, the high court dismissed a separate case filed by a local human rights lawyer that directly challenged the deal itself, though an appeal has since been filed.
Eswatini, an absolute monarchy governed by King Mswati III, has so far released only two of the detainees — a Jamaican man freed last year and a Cambodian national released last month.
While Tuesday’s ruling technically covers only the original five arrivals — since the legal challenge was launched specifically on their behalf — it is widely expected to set a precedent that could benefit the remaining detainees as their cases work through the courts.
By: Andrews Kwesi Yeboah