Arizona man languishes in African hotel after third-country deportation

Ahmed Soliman, a 30-year-old man who grew up in Phoenix, has spent about three months confined at a former hotel in Equatorial Guinea after ICE deported him there without warning. Armed guards patrol the property, where he says 17 people deported from the United States are being held.

Soliman’s family moved from Egypt to Arizona when he was 4. An immigration judge granted him protection from deportation to Egypt after finding he could face torture or death there because he is gay and because of his family’s political history. His attorneys say ICE deported him despite that protection and while a federal court case was still pending.

Soliman described the conditions at the Bamy Hotel as worsening and prisonlike. He said the detainees receive basic meals, but must buy most other necessities with money sent by their families. He also said supplies such as toothpaste, clean clothes, soap and toilet paper have been limited or withheld.

A person with Ebola has reportedly been quarantined on another floor of the hotel. Soliman said local officials arrived wearing protective suits, but the deportees were not given protective equipment. He fears that he and others could eventually be sent to their home countries, despite protections granted by U.S. courts.

The United States has agreements allowing other countries to accept deportees who cannot be returned home. ICE said such agreements are needed to remove people who cannot be sent to their home countries, and that the agency follows laws against sending people to places where they are likely to face torture. ICE did not answer questions about the conditions at the hotel.