A Moroccan woman who fled her home after facing violence for her sexuality says she was deported from the United States to a country where being gay is also a crime, despite having legal protection from a US judge.
The 21-year-old, known only as Farah for safety reasons, told The Associated Press that she is now back in Morocco and living in hiding after being sent first to Cameroon, where homosexuality is illegal, and then returned to her home country.
In Morocco, being gay can carry up to three years in prison, and Farah said her life was in danger because of her sexual orientation. Before fleeing, she said her family and her partner’s family beat her when they discovered her relationship and later tried to kill her.
She was forced out of her home and travelled with her partner to a new city to escape further violence.
With help from a friend, she and her partner obtained visas to go to Brazil and then made their way through six countries to reach the US border, where they asked for asylum in early 2025. “You get put in situations that are truly horrible,” Farah said.
She added: “When we arrived (at the U.S. border), it felt like it was worth the trouble and that we got to our goal.”
Instead of freedom, Farah spent almost a year in immigration detention, first in Arizona and then in Louisiana. She described the centres as very cold, with only thin blankets, and said medical care was inadequate.
Although she was denied asylum, an immigration judge in the US later issued a protection order, ruling that returning her to Morocco would endanger her life. Her partner, who did not receive a protection order, was deported.
Just three days before she was due to be released, Farah said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took her into custody and put her on a flight to Cameroon, a country she had never visited and where homosexuality is also illegal. She was placed in a detention facility there. “They asked me if I wanted to stay in Cameroon, and I told them that I can’t stay in Cameroon and risk my life in a place where I would still be endangered,” she said.
She was later flown back to Morocco.
Farah is one of many people confirmed to have been deported from the US to third countries despite having protection orders from US immigration judges. Lawyers say the Trump administration has used these third-country deportations as a way to push migrants who are in the country illegally to depart on their own.
Legal experts say that sending people with protection orders to countries where they face serious harm violates US immigration law, international treaties and due process rights.
“By deporting them … the U.S. not only violated their due process rights but our own immigration laws,” said immigration lawyer Alma David.
Farah said the experience was unfair and cruel. “The USA is built on immigration and by immigrant labor, so we’re clearly not all threats,” she said.
She added: “What was done to me was unfair … only to be deported in such a way, is cruel.”
