Updated April 28, 2026 at 6:00 AM EDT
KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo—None of them imagined they would end up in Kinshasa. On April 17, the U.S. government deported 15 people to the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a deeply impoverished African country that's been scarred by years of conflict.
The group—comprising men and women from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru—is the first to arrive as part of a secretive migration deal brokered with the Trump administration.
"They took us, they put us on a plane, and they chained us by our hands and feet," said one Colombian man, sitting on a plastic chair in a shabby hotel near Kinshasa's airport. The deportees didn't know their final destination until they were on the plane, he added.
NPR interviewed five of the Latin American deportees. We're not naming them, as they say it could put them at risk from potential threats back in their home countries.
All said that they faced danger if they returned, but that they wanted to do so because Congo is dangerous and poor.
Several also said that they were deported despite ongoing court cases regarding their right to remain in the U.S.
While the deportees are receiving regular meals, water can cut out for days at a time in the hotel, and rodents scurry through their rooms. Mosquitoes are also ubiquitous. They are free to leave their hotel, but are being urged by security there to remain inside—effectively cut off in a country they have no links to, and whose language they do not speak.
Two of the deportees said they hadn't been vaccinated against yellow fever before being expelled from the U.S. The mosquito-borne disease is endemic in Congo, alongside malaria.
"I know that Congo has an armed conflict, with a yellow fever outbreak," said one Ecuadoran man, explaining why he didn't want to stay.
Much of eastern Congo, about 1,000 miles from Kinshasa, has been plagued by violence for decades, a legacy of regional wars that raged in the region in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Rebels from the Rwanda-backed group, M23, have also captured huge swathes of territory since launching an insurgency in late 2021, and are running a parallel government administration in the east. But there is also armed conflict happening about 70-100 miles northeast of Kinshasa.
Kinshasa itself is a megacity of over 15 million people, according to the World Bank, where the vast majority of inhabitants struggle to live day to day.
"Outside is another world," said one Colombian woman in the hotel, who noted that none of the group could speak French, Congo's official language.
A quiet deal with visible consequences
While more deportees from the U.S. are expected to arrive, almost no details concerning the U.S.-Congo migration deal have been made public.
Congo isn't the only African country with which the Trump administration has brokered migration deals. Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan and Eswatini are among several countries that have also agreed to take in third country deportees as part of a broader U.S. immigration crackdown.
On April 17, Congo's government stated that migrants will only stay in the country temporarily, and that the U.S. government will foot the bill. But it's not clear how many people will arrive in the country, or what will happen with them once they're there, or how long they will remain.
The deportees NPR spoke to say they have been given no credible options other than returning to their home countries.
The U.S. State Department said that they had "no comment on the details of our diplomatic communications with other governments."
According to AfghanEvac, a nonprofit group that helps resettle Afghan evacuees, the Trump administration is also considering sending as many as 1,100 Afghans to Congo, many of whom helped U.S. forces during the war in Afghanistan. However, President Trump told reporters last week that he wasn't aware of this plan.
Still, in Congo itself, the arrival of the Latin Americans, and the prospect of hundreds of Afghans following them, is proving highly controversial.
On Monday, protesters burned tires in Kinshasa and marched through the streets carrying banners against hosting what they called "Afghan mercenaries." This followed a sit-in in front of the U.S. embassy held last week.
For many Congolese people, the migration deal is in poor taste. About one million Congolese citizens are themselves refugees, having sought shelter for the most part in neighboring states. Conflict has also displaced nearly seven million people inside Congo.
Opposition politicians have been quick to denounce the policy. Over the weekend Congolese opposition politician Delly Sessanga challenged President Felix Tshisekedi over the issue.
"What have the Congolese done to you that you would reduce this already devastated nation to a dumping ground for U.S. immigration and security policies?" Sessanga said.
'We don't know what will happen'
For the deportees back in the hotel, there is confusion—and also fear. Many said they had neither money nor passports. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is assisting the group, and some are in touch with their lawyers back in the U.S.
The Ecuadorian man compared the situation to human trafficking, noting that the group had been forcibly deported.
"I'm here in a place where I can't do anything," he said. "I want to return to my country."
One Colombian woman said that all of their cases were complicated. "We don't know what will happen to us," she said.
For now, they remain in limbo—thousands of miles from home, in a country that is unfamiliar to them, where they are far from welcome and have little sense of what comes next.
Copyright 2026 NPR