The Trump administration has developed plans to send migrants to detention centers in Libya on a military flight, according to Reuters.
The flight could depart as soon as Wednesday, officials told The New York Times. The nationalities of those set to be on the flight were not immediately apparent.
Libya is in the middle of severe conflict, and human rights groups have called its migrant detention centers “horrific” and “deplorable.”
The effort comes as the Trump administration is working to deter migrants from entering the U.S., as well as send a message to those in the country unlawfully that they can be sent to countries with difficult conditions.
The flight may still not occur due to legal, logistical, or diplomatic restrictions. The administration has already faced pushback for sending a group of Venezuelans to El Salvador, where they are being detained in a prison designated for terrorists.
The State Department advises the American public against going to Libya “due to crime, terrorism, unexploded land mines, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict.”
The country has faced years of civil war since the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, its longtime dictator. The country remains divided – a UN-recognized government governs western Libya from Tripoli. At the same time, the east is ruled by a government led by the warlord Khalifa Haftar, who controls most of the country’s oil fields.
The U.S. only has a formal relationship with the government in Tripoli, but that didn’t stop Haftar’s son, Saddam, from visiting Washington last week, meeting with several Trump officials. Trump had a friendly relationship with Haftar during his first term in the White House.
Libya serves as a hub for migrants trying to get to Europe, and the country has several detention facilities for refugees and migrants. In a 2021 report, Amnesty International said those facilities made up a “horrific” “hellscape” with evidence of “sexual violence against men, women and children.”
Meanwhile, the Global Detention Project said migrants held in Libya may be the subject of “physical mistreatment and torture,” as well as forced labor and slavery.
The State Department pointed to “harsh and life-threatening” conditions in the detention centers in the country in its annual report last year. It found that migrants had “no access to immigration courts or due process.”
A Libya expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Frederic Wehrey, told The Times: “I have been in those migrant prisons and it’s no place for migrants.”
He added: “It’s just a horrific place to dump any vulnerable person.”
