By Staff, Agencies

The Trump administration is preparing to deport a group of migrants to Libya aboard a US military aircraft, a move that marks a dangerous escalation in its global deportation strategy and has drawn condemnation from legal experts and human rights groups.

According to US officials cited by Reuters, the flight could depart as early as Wednesday.

The nationalities of the deportees remain undisclosed, while the operation is being closely held within federal agencies and may still be delayed by legal, diplomatic, or logistical challenges.

While Libya is currently considered an unstable country, the State Department explicitly warns against travel to the North African nation due to “crime, terrorism, unexploded land mines, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict.”

Nonetheless, the Trump administration is pushing forward with deportation plans, part of its broader effort to deter undocumented migration by signaling that deportees can and will be sent to dangerous countries.

The United States has formal relations only with the UN-recognized government in Tripoli.

However, eastern Libya is controlled by Khalifa Haftar, a Trump-era ally.

His son, Saddam Haftar, was in Washington last week and met with several administration officials, signaling potential backchannel engagement between the two sides.