Phone Chomsavanh, a Laotian citizen deported by the United States to Eswatini, left a maximum-security prison on Sunday and is now being sent to Laos, his lawyer said. Eswatini received $5.1 million from the Trump administration under the agreement used to send him there. Chomsavanh had no ties to the country and had already served his U.S. sentence.
His U.S.-based lawyer, Tin Thanh Nguyen, said Chomsavanh left Eswatini and landed in Johannesburg on his way to Laos. An Eswatini government spokesperson didn't immediately acknowledge his release. Chomsavanh had been held at Matsapha Correctional Complex, near the administrative capital, Mbabane.
A deportation without a hearing
Chomsavanh was among five immigrants sent to Eswatini in July 2025, during the early days of the Trump administration's third-country deportation program. Nguyen said Chomsavanh learned shortly before a military cargo plane landed that Eswatini was his destination. The plane carried him and the other deportees.
Chomsavanh and the four other immigrants had convictions for serious crimes in the United States, but they had served their sentences before the U.S. sent them to Matsapha Correctional Complex. Nguyen said his client wasn't accused of any crime in Eswatini.
“He had already served his time. Instead they put him on a plane without telling him where it was headed and left him in a prison in a country he had never heard of, where nobody ever accused him of anything,” Nguyen said. “No notice, no hearing, no chance to object. That is not due process by any definition.”
Nguyen said Chomsavanh was born in a refugee camp in Thailand after his parents fled Laos. His family moved to the United States when he was 7. The U.S. sent him to a country with which he had no ties, where authorities held him after he completed his U.S. sentence.
Payments and the deportation network
Human Rights First and Refugees International, advocacy groups monitoring the deportations, say around 500 immigrants have been deported from the United States to African countries that aren't their home nations since the program began last year. Around a dozen African countries have accepted deportees, with some receiving millions of dollars in payments.
Eswatini, Africa's last absolute monarchy, is ruled by a king and received $5.1 million from the Trump administration under its agreement with the United States. The country has received around 30 deportees. The program sends immigrants to countries where they have no ties and where they haven't faced any criminal charges.
The Trump administration has defended the policy as a way to quickly remove immigrants with final deportation orders when their home countries might not immediately take them back. Rights groups and lawyers have sharply criticized the program, while legal challenges have been brought in the United States and some recipient countries.
Courts and the limits of review
Last month, a U.S. appeals court upheld a judge's ruling halting the program. The ruling said the government hadn't given immigrants facing removal time to challenge deportation to a third country if they feared persecution or torture there.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week to temporarily allow President Donald Trump's administration to continue swiftly removing immigrants to third countries. The court is scheduled to hear arguments in the case in December.
The program has largely operated in secrecy. Officials have offered little transparency about how many people have been deported, where they're held or the conditions of their detention. Chomsavanh's lawyer said authorities sent him abroad without notice or a hearing, even as courts consider whether people facing third-country deportation have time to challenge their removal.