Six individuals who were deported by the United States to Liberia last week refused to disembark from the plane and were subsequently transferred to Equatorial Guinea, a fellow African nation with a third-country deportation agreement with the Trump administration. The group included four Cuban men, a Brazilian man, and a Cameroonian woman. According to an anonymous passenger and a lawyer in contact with them, the deportees resisted leaving the plane in Liberia, stating that they did not consider it their country of origin and feared danger there. Upon refusal to disembark, the group was separated from other passengers. The U.S. has reportedly been using third-country deportation agreements as a legal loophole to indirectly return some asylum seekers to countries they had fled. Upon arrival in Malabo city, Equatorial Guinea, the six were held at a hotel where conditions have allegedly worsened in recent months, with food sometimes withheld and guards accused of threats, beatings, and choking some of the migrants. The Equatorial Guinean government has yet to respond to requests for comment regarding this matter. Under a $7.5 million deal with the Trump administration, Equatorial Guinea's president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has converted a family-owned hotel into a detention center for asylum seekers deported from the U.S.