Trump's deportation push forces dozens of LGBT migrants onto hostile terrain

Latifou, a gay Togolese man who says he was forced onto a US deportation flight to a third country before relocating to Ivory Coast. REUTERS/Luc Gnago

Abdou Latifou was attacked by a mob in Togo that threatened to kill him after he was seen kissing the man he loved.

He fled his home in the West African nation and sought refuge in the United States, but in June, he was forced onto a US deportation plane to Sierra Leone, a nation where gay men can be sentenced to life in prison.

Now in Ivory Coast, Latifou is one of 40 cases Reuters has documented in which migrants were granted US legal protection after being persecuted for being LGBT, then deported to third countries. Those countries either criminalize same-sex relations or have been described by the State Department as hostile to LGBT people.

More than 40,000 people in total have been deported to countries not their own by ICE and Border Patrol since President Donald Trump's return to office, according to preliminary government data shared with Reuters.

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