By Enyichukwu Enemanna
A Colombian woman deported from the United States to the Democratic Republic of Congo under a new agreement with the Trump administration says she was under pressure to return to Colombia despite the dangers she would face there.
The 29-year-old woman, is part of an initial group of 15 migrants from South America who were flown to the Central African nation last week.
The U.S. administration has struck several third-country deportation agreements with African nations to further President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration.
Congo is one of the most unstable, with more than seven million people internally displaced by conflict and more than a million refugees abroad.
The woman and two others in the group from Colombia, Peru and Ecuador told Reuters that, since arriving in the country, they had been offered no credible option but to return home.
“We feel pressured to agree to go back to our country, regardless of the risks,” she said.
She fled Colombia in January 2024 because she was kidnapped and tortured by the FARC rebel group and was seriously abused by her ex-husband who is a police officer, she wrote in her application for asylum in the United States, which Reuters has seen.
A U.S. immigration judge ruled in May 2025 that she was more likely than not to be tortured again if she were forced back home, U.S. court records reviewed by Reuters showed.
The other two migrants said they were also granted legal protection by U.S. judges.
