Lao man deported by the US to Eswatini is released after more than a year in prison

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- A Laotian citizen deported by the United States to Eswatini under the Trump administration's immigration crackdown was released from a maximum-security prison in the African nation on Sunday after being held there for more than a year, his lawyer said.Phone Chomsavanh was among five immigrants deported to Eswatini — where he has no ties — in July 2025 in the early days of the Trump administration's secretive and highly contentious third-country deportation program.Chomsavanh's U.S.-based lawyer, Tin Thanh Nguyen, said in a statement announcing his release that he had only been informed that he was being deported to Eswatini shortly before a military cargo plane carrying him and other deportees landed there more than 14 months ago.Chomsavanh was now being deported to Laos, Nguyen said.Chomsavanh and the four other immigrants he was deported to Eswatini with were convicted of serious crimes in the U.S., but had served their sentences by the time they were sent to the Matsapha Correctional Complex near Eswatini's administrative capital, Mbabane.“He had already served his time. Instead they put him on a plane without telling him where it was headed and left h...