CAPE TOWN, South Africa — The United States has sent five immigrants it says were convicted of serious crimes to the African nation of Eswatini, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed, in an expansion of the Trump administration’s largely secretive third-country deportation program.

The U.S. has already deported eight men to another African country, South Sudan, after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on sending people to countries where they have no ties. The South Sudanese government has declined to say where those men, also described as violent criminals, are after it took custody of them nearly two weeks ago.

In a late-night post on X Tuesday, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said five men — citizens of Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen — had been deported to Eswatini. She said they were all convicted criminals and “individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.”

McLaughlin said they had been convicted of crimes including murder and child rape and one was a “confirmed” gang member. Her social media posts included mug shots of the men and what she said were their criminal records and sentences. They were not named.

The Eswatini government said Wednesday that the men, which it referred to as “prisoners” and “inmates,” were being held in isolated units in unnamed correctional facilities in Eswatini but were considered to be in transit and would ultimately be sent back to their home countries.

In a series of posts on X, the Eswatini government said it would collaborate with the United States and the U.N. migration agency to facilitate their return home and ensure “due process and respect for human rights is followed” as part of their repatriation. The government gave no time frame for that to happen.

Four of the five countries where the men are from have historically been resistant to taking back some citizens when they’re deported from the United States. Some countries refuse to take back any of their citizens, while others won’t accept people who have committed crimes in the U.S.

Trina Realmuto of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, one of the lawyers litigating a key case challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to remove people to third countries without notice or giving them the opportunity to raise concerns over persecution or torture, said part of the administration’s goal with flights like the one to Eswatini is to send a message that people could be punished by being sent to “far-flung countries.”

“It’s disturbing that we don’t know what the exchange was to get Eswatini to accept these individuals. We don’t know if there were diplomatic assurances and, if so, what they said. We don’t know if these individuals were given notice,” Realmuto said. “It’s all done in secrecy.”

A July 9 memo to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement staff lays out the agency’s policy governing when and how ICE can send someone with a final order of removal to a “third country.”

If the United States has received assurances that the State Department deems credible from the third country that people the U.S. sends there won’t be tortured, ICE can send them without any further procedures.

If the U.S. hasn’t received those assurances, ICE can still send the person there but first has to notify them, in a language the person understands, telling them where they’re going. Time between notice and deportation is generally 24 hours, but can be as little as six hours.

ICE doesn’t have to ask if they fear being sent there. If the person raises concerns on their own, they’re interviewed by an asylum officer and must show it’s more likely than not they’ll be persecuted or tortured there.

“It’s an impossible standard to meet, especially if the person is not knowledgeable about the country,” Realmuto said.

Eswatini, previously called Swaziland, is a country of about 1.2 million people between South Africa and Mozambique. It is one of the world’s last remaining absolute monarchies and the last in Africa. King Mswati III has ruled by decree since 1986. Political parties are effectively banned and pro-democracy groups have said for years that Mswati has crushed political dissent, sometimes violently.

Amy Fischer, Amnesty International USA’s director of refugee and migrant rights, said the State Department’s own 2023 human rights report found credible accounts of unlawful or arbitrary killings by security forces in Eswatini, impunity for abuses, and harsh prison conditions.

“As a result, anyone returned to this country is at risk of serious human rights violations,” she said. “The cruelty is the point.”