U.S. deports gay asylum seeker to country where homosexuality is illegal

The United States’ immigration enforcement practices are under renewed scrutiny after the Trump administration deported a 21-year-old gay asylum seeker from Morocco to a country where homosexuality is criminalized. The case illustrates what advocates describe as an evolving and dangerous approach to LGBTQ+ asylum claims by the Trump administration.

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The Associated Press reports that the woman, identified as Farah, fled Morocco after suffering family violence tied to her sexual orientation. Morocco criminalizes same-sex relations. After arriving at the U.S. border seeking protection, she was detained for nearly a year and ultimately denied asylum. In August 2025, an immigration judge issued a protection order preventing her deportation to Morocco. Despite that order, federal authorities placed her on a flight to Cameroon, a country where same-sex intimacy is also illegal. Farah told the AP that she is now back in Morocco, living in hiding, fearful for her safety.

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Farah is among dozens of migrants confirmed by lawyers to have been deported under so-called third-country removal policies, in which the United States sends people to nations with which they have no meaningful ties. Lawyers told the AP that at least seven African countries, including Cameroon, South Sudan, and Rwanda, have accepted deportees under these arrangements.

Bilateral transfer agreements reviewed by The Advocate enable U.S. officials to seek dismissal of asylum claims in U.S. courts by arguing that another country is willing to assume responsibility for the person’s protection review, even absent enforceable standards for evaluating LGBTQ-related claims.

Critics argue the policy exploits legal loopholes and undermines protections that U.S. law and international agreements are supposed to guarantee.

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In January, The Advocate documented how attorneys say new transfer agreements and court tactics could allow the U.S. to sidestep asylum rulings by proposing alternative destinations such as Uganda or Iran, where same-sex relationships and gender nonconformity are criminalized and can be punished by imprisonment, torture, or execution.

The Advocate also reported on cases involving gay Iranian men whose asylum claims were denied and who faced imminent deportation back to Iran, where homosexuality is punishable by death. Their attorney described them as having “textbook asylum cases” because they fled grave danger based on their sexual orientation.

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Human rights groups, immigration lawyers, and LGBTQ+ advocates say these developments reflect systemic problems in the U.S. asylum system, including a lack of guaranteed legal representation, procedural barriers, and policies that prioritize enforcement over protection. They argue that existing immigration law and international refugee protections were designed to shield people fleeing persecution, particularly when based on sexual orientation or gender identity, from being returned to harm.