The migrants—citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen, and Laos—had served prison sentences in the U.S. for serious crimes, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin described the five men as "individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back."

The United States has deported five individuals from Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos to Eswatini, a small southern African nation governed by a king who still holds absolute power.

On July 4, the U.S. deported eight migrants to another African country, South Sudan, after holding them for weeks in a converted shipping container at a military base in Djibouti. The men had initially boarded a flight in May, which was later diverted, The Guardian reported.

Eswatini’s government said on Wednesday that it was holding five third-country nationals deported from the United States in isolated prison units under a deal with President Donald Trump’s administration,