ICE's Plan to Deport Gravely Ill Detainees to Central Africa This Week: Will Their Health Be Protected Abroad?

---

---

Two deportation flights are expected to carry critically ill ICE detainees from south Florida to the Central African Republic — and possibly Burundi — by Friday, according to immigration advocates who learned of the planned operations only after detainees inside two South Florida facilities were called in for interviews with removal officers. The flights would push the limits of a third-country deportation policy the Supreme Court reactivated less than a month ago, sending people with serious medical conditions on journeys of more than 20 hours to nations where no reception plan, no medical arrangement, and no diplomatic acknowledgment appears to be waiting.

Families and Advocates Sound the Alarm

Detainees inside Krome North Processing Center in Miami and the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach were recently summoned to meet with deportation officers — a step immigration advocates consistently read as a signal of imminent removal. Both facilities are run by private contractors under ICE agreements and sit in neighboring Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

The advocacy organization Workers Circle, which has maintained contact with detainees at both sites, flagged the situation to families and media after learning of the officer interviews. Immigration attorney Shalyn Fluharty, working from information the detainees themselves relayed, told The Guardian that two flights were anticipated — one Thursday, one Friday — headed to the Central African Republic, with Burundi named as another possible destination. She stressed that long-haul deportation flights carry particular risk for anyone managing diabetes, heart conditions, or stroke vulnerability, given the combination of prolonged restraint, disrupted meal schedules, and severely limited access to medical intervention mid-flight.

Workers Circle Director of Social Justice Noelle Damico did not mince her words at a press conference this week: "It's abhorrent. This is profoundly inhumane."

The Cuban Man at the Center of the Story

The case drawing the most public attention involves Noslén Sendra, a 41-year-old Cuban who has been in ICE custody since November 2025. He spent his first months detained at the remote Everglades facility known as "Alligator Alcatraz," which ceased operations in June 2026, before being transferred to Krome North in April. His wife, Anisley Cortés, has told multiple outlets that Sendra — who has type 2 diabetes and has been hospitalized three times with acute pancreatitis — lost more than 50 pounds in custody and remains medically fragile.

ICE informed Sendra, according to his wife, that Cuba would not accept him as a deportee and that Mexico had similarly declined, citing his health needs. Africa, he was told, would be the destination. No confirmed flight manifest has placed Sendra on either of this week's planned operations, and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond substantively to The Guardian after receiving his personal details. In a broader denial, a DHS spokesperson insisted that no sick detainees are being sent anywhere, that all deportees undergo medical clearance before boarding, and that they travel with any required medications in hand. Cortés said she has no idea where her husband might land — or whether the family will ever be reunited.

Attorney Fluharty questioned how ICE could realistically certify as fit for travel a person with Sendra's documented medical history, given the agency's own standards requiring a fitness-to-fly assessment before any deportation.

Krome's Collapsing Medical Infrastructure

The government's own auditors had already sounded alarms about Krome North's capacity to manage detainees with complex health needs before this week's reports surfaced. A Department of Homeland Security Inspector General report released September 11, 2026 — based on an unannounced inspection from May 2025 — counted 1,102 detainees at a facility built for a maximum of 882, putting occupancy 25 percent above its authorized limit. The same report documented 15 vacant medical positions covering behavioral health, psychology, nursing support, and administration, alongside active food-safety violations that included raw poultry stored improperly and detainees sleeping on temporary cots or the floor.

At least 27 people died in ICE custody in 2026 through September, according to data tracked by civil liberties organizations — a tally they describe as an undercount, in part because ICE rescinded a rule requiring disclosure of deaths within 30 days of release from custody. That death toll accumulated as the detention system held more than 68,000 people as of February, a roughly 70 percent increase over pre-second-term levels. Workers Circle immigrant rights organizer Arianne Betancourt told Axios that detainees with serious conditions routinely arrive in third countries only to find no medical support on the other side.

A Policy Cleared by the High Court

These flights flow directly from a September 29 Supreme Court order that handed the administration a broad interim victory. The court stayed a ruling by Boston federal district judge Brian Murphy — upheld in most of its key provisions by the First Circuit Court of Appeals on September 18 — that had required the government to give migrants meaningful written notice and a realistic opportunity to raise objections before removal to a country not listed in their deportation orders. Full oral arguments on the policy's legality are set for the December session; in the meantime, every legal obstacle to carrying out such removals was removed.

In filings submitted ahead of the ruling, Solicitor General John Sauer described third-country removals as "an essential tool to remove certain aliens." The United States has now reached removal agreements with more than three dozen countries, the majority in Africa, using the program to move tens of thousands of individuals whose home nations decline to take them back. In a 10-day span in late August alone, ICE sent more than 100 immigrants on three flights to eight African nations, according to internal government documents obtained by CBS News. A Human Rights Watch report released October 8 — titled "To Scare People" — tallied 536 third-country removals to Africa between January 2025 and early August 2026, none of them to the deportees' country of citizenship, a number that will have grown significantly before December's arguments reach the court.

No Safety Net at the Destination

The personal toll of this policy is already on the record. Arístides Fernández García, a 37-year-old Cuban, was removed to the Central African Republic at the end of July and spent nearly three months stranded in Bangui — the capital of a country the U.S. State Department rates a Level 4 "Do Not Travel" zone due to armed conflict, kidnapping, landmine risk, and health dangers — before finally managing to leave this week for Bolivia. A separate West Africa-bound deportation flight was canceled in 2021 following brutality allegations, with Cameroonian detainees submitting sworn affidavits describing coerced fingerprinting and physical abuse by ICE officers during the boarding process.

DHS pushed back forcefully against the entire premise of this week's reports. A department spokesperson stated that no medically ill individuals are being deported, that all travelers have completed a fitness-for-travel assessment and carry required medications, and that each receiving country has provided diplomatic assurances of safety for incoming deportees. As of Friday morning, no federal court had issued an emergency order blocking either of the reported flights. Neither the Central African Republic nor Burundi has publicly acknowledged that it was expecting incoming transfers from the United States this week.

© {{Year}} Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.