Laotian Freed From Eswatini Prison Year After US Deportation

Phone Chomsavanh was released Sunday from Matsapha Correctional Complex near Mbabane, Eswatini, after more than a year without charges, his lawyer Tin Thanh Nguyen said. He was one of five immigrants the United States deported to Eswatini in July 2025 after completing U.S. sentences. Nguyen said Chomsavanh left Eswatini and arrived in Johannesburg traveling onward to Laos. Nguyen said the Trump administration flew him to the kingdom years after his U.S. sentence and handed him to a maximum-security prison, where he was held more than a year without being charged with a crime. An Eswatini government spokesperson did not immediately confirm the release. Chomsavanh was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and moved to the U.S. at age 7. Human Rights First estimates about 500 immigrants have been deported from the U.S. to African countries not their own since the program began last year. Eswatini was paid $5.1 million and received roughly 30 deportees. A U.S. appeals court last month upheld suspension of the third-country program; the Supreme Court last week allowed temporary continuation, with December arguments.