Relatives and immigration advocates say seriously ill people held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in south Florida may be sent to African countries, but reports do not confirm that any flight departed or detainee was removed.
The reports concern Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami and Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach. The Guardian reported that relatives and The Workers Circle had cited Wednesday, Oct. 21, as an earliest possible departure date. Immigration attorney Shalyn Fluharty estimated two flights were more likely Thursday and Friday, Oct. 22-23, and named the Central African Republic and possibly Burundi. EFE also reported those possible destinations. U.S. officials had not confirmed the schedule, destinations or people targeted.
The Guardian reported that Workers Circle organizer Arianne Betancourt relayed detainees’ accounts that Mexico had declined to receive them because of their medical needs. Anisley Cortés said her husband, Noslen Sendra Gonzalez, had also been told Mexico would not accept him. No statement from Mexican authorities was cited.
Cortés told The Guardian that Gonzalez has diabetes and acute pancreatitis, spent weeks in hospital earlier this year and lost more than 50 pounds. “He is very sick and needs the right healthcare,” she said. EFE, citing Cortés, separately reported three pancreatitis episodes and three hospitalizations. The reports give different detail and cite no medical records.
A March 30, 2026, U.S. District Court order identifies Gonzalez as a Cuban citizen who had lived in the United States since 2015. It says immigration officials returned him to custody on Nov. 12, 2025, after ending his supervision. The judge denied his habeas petition without prejudice, finding his final removal order uncontested. The order also rejected as hypothetical his request for notice and a hearing if officials identified an “alternative third country”; it did not address the reported plan to send him to Africa.
ICE says its Health Service Corps assesses detainees’ fitness to travel before deportation and monitors medical needs in transit. A September report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General said an inspection in May 2025 counted 1,102 detainees at Krome, whose stated capacity was 882. Inspectors also found too few working toilets, sinks and showers.
Human Rights Watch’s Oct. 8 analysis of ICE deportation data counted more than 500 people sent to African countries outside their countries of origin from Jan. 20, 2025, through Aug. 5, 2026. The group said people sent to Eswatini, Ghana and South Sudan faced arbitrary detention and ill-treatment, and characterized the transfers as a deterrent policy. The Guardian reported that advocates link detention-center overcrowding and increased third-country flights to the administration’s immigration crackdown.
On Sept. 29, the Supreme Court stayed a lower-court judgment restricting third-country removals and agreed to review the case without ruling on the policy’s legality. Arguments are scheduled for Dec. 9.
