Malabo, Equatorial Guinea — At first glance, the hotel looks like any other on this tropical island off the coast of Central Africa, with a palm-lined corridor, a marble-floored foyer and a portrait of the oil-rich nation’s president hanging behind a mahogany reception desk.
However, the eerily empty Pami Hotel is no refuge for adventure-seeking tourists or international business travelers these days. Since late last year, only a few people have stayed there, and they were not on vacation. They are being Held against their will.
Under opaque A deal worth $7.5 million In cooperation with the Trump administration, Equatorial Guinea’s powerful president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, turned this family-owned hotel into a prison for asylum seekers deported from the United States.
The hotel is just a way station, though. Of at least 32 people imprisoned there since November — all of whom previously received protection from American judges, their lawyers said — 25 have been forced to return to their home countries across Africa where their lives may be in danger. The rest face pressure from the authorities to leave.
“Government officials would come all the time and say, ‘Where is your passport? You have to go back to your country,’” said a 26-year-old man from an East African country imprisoned in the hotel. Fearing retaliation, he spoke on condition of anonymity, as did two other deportees interviewed by The Associated Press.
The Trump administration is using it Deportation to third countries Immigration lawyers say it represents a legal loophole to indirectly force asylum seekers to return to their countries of origin.
Because Equatorial Guinea is run by an authoritarian government — as are some other countries that have signed similar agreements — it is difficult for foreign journalists to visit and report firsthand on conditions there. AP traveled to Bioko Island as part of The last visit of the first American PopeIt is the only international news organization to have visited the hotel where migrants are being held.
Men and women from Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Mauritania, now trapped in a country many had never heard of before arriving, wander the hotel’s long corridors and look out the windows into the sparkling swimming pool they are not allowed to use.
They have not faced any physical abuse, but they feel intense psychological pressure because they will likely return to their home countries, which they fear.
“I’m scared and depressed,” the East African man said.
Because of his ethnicity and his flight from his homeland, he said he would be imprisoned or killed if forced to return. Human rights experts say that all asylum seekers at the hotel face a high risk of persecution in their home country.
Under a series of vague and often secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to nearly two dozen non-Trump countries, advocates say, all part of a broader U.S. crackdown on immigration. The countries that have entered into agreements are mostly in the developing world, according to the Third Country Deportation Monitoring Group, including nearly a dozen countries Africa. Experts say countries that accept deportees may do so to gain goodwill in negotiations with the United States over trade. Immigration or Helps.
The Trump administration refused to comment on the details of its agreement with Equatorial Guinea. A State Department spokesperson said: “We remain steadfast in our commitment to ending illegal and mass migration.”
Obiang’s administration did not respond to a request for comment.
While the East African man at the Bami Hotel recounted his trip, a government guard who spoke little English sat nearby, scrolling through his phone in an empty conference room.
The man said that after traveling from Africa to Brazil, in August 2024 he arrived at the US border, where he was detained. He was then transferred between immigration centers in California, Arizona and Louisiana, before landing in Equatorial Guinea about six months ago.
He said that the daily routine of the deportees at the hotel is normal, although the place makes it seem surreal.
He added that they sleep in luxurious rooms that are rarely cleaned, and are served rice and meat on white cloth tables inside the hotel restaurant. After being nauseated by food several times, the East African man said he ate the bare minimum.
A local lawyer brings a new toothbrush, SIM cards for cell phones, and sanitary products for women.
Medical care was uneven. The East African man was immediately taken to hospital after he complained of an eye problem. But when he contracted malaria and typhoid, he was not taken to hospital until his condition deteriorated dramatically and required intravenous infusion. He added that other detainees went through similar experiences.
Recently, the East African man complained to a police officer about his situation. The officer responded by saying that his problems would go away if he went to the fourth floor of the hotel and jumped out of the window.
“What can I do now? The situation has become worse,” he said, his weak body trembling. “I’m starting to lose my mind.”
Equatorial Guinea is considered one of the richest countries in Africa thanks to its oil resources. It is also rife with corruption and human rights abuses, according to US officials.
The country, a former Spanish colony, fell into economic despair after gaining independence in 1968. Its fate changed in the 1990s when American companies began exploring for oil along its vast coastline. The subsequent boom transformed the economy, but more than half the population still lives in poverty.
The country Oil-fueled wealth Obiang and his family have seized much of their money, according to human rights groups. Obiang’s 57-year-old son and heir apparent, Teodoro “Teodorin” Obiang Nguema, chronicles his lavish lifestyle on TikTok — where he dips in infinity pools, feasts on lobster, and travels on private jets — even as Equatorial Guinean citizens are banned from using the platform.
The younger Obiang, who serves as vice president, faces international sanctions over corruption in his father’s administration. But the United States Lifting sanctionsallowing the younger Obiang to travel to a high-level UN meeting in New York last September, just weeks before deportations to Equatorial Guinea began.
There are almost no critical voices in Equatorial Guinea, where human rights groups and the US State Department accuse the government of arresting, torturing and even killing those who dare to speak out.
Despite this, its largest foreign investors are American companies, and its military receives funding for training from the US government.
The deportees still at the Bami Hotel know that they could be sent home any day.
Representatives of the United Nations International Organization for Migration and its refugee agency visited the hotel in November and promised the deportees they would return. They never did.
This East African man is the only one among them who has been allowed to see a lawyer, although it is not clear why.
Although Equatorial Guinea does not have an asylum policy, his lawyer has submitted a formal application to the Prime Minister’s Office – something worth doing if there is any chance he will be released from the hotel.
He was asked to beg for mercy from the country’s vice president, but his asylum request was rejected.
The next morning, the authorities deported five more people, leaving him anxious as he awaited his fate. He was told he would be next.
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Associated Press writer Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis contributed to this report.