Without prior notice, in the month of July, the United States deported five men to Eswatini. Initially, this action created an intense legal and ethical discussion about how individuals who have already served their time in the United States should be treated. Another deportee, Orville Etoria, a 62-year-old Miami man, has raised alarm among health experts. His especially alarming criminal record and the nature of his deportation have troubled and outraged thousands.
Orville Etoria came to the US legally back in 1976 at the age of 12. He was found guilty of the murder charge in 1997 and received a prison sentence of 25 years. Having served his full sentence, he received an undergraduate degree through prison education programs and was released on parole in 2021. Prior to his deportation, Etoria’s focus was on staying employed in a men’s shelter. He was working towards a master’s in divinity, reflecting his desire to rehabilitate and better serve his community.
Among these other deportees is a 70-year-old Yemeni man. In 2020, after serving 22 years for the murder, he was released. Featured is a Cuban man in his mid-50s who’d killed someone, serving nine years for murder before deportation. Upon release, he was quickly hired by a plumbing company in FL. As a song of protest, this ensemble features Vietnamese, Jamaican, and Laotian men. Each of them has a criminal conviction but has done their time and successfully reentered society as productive members.
The U.S. federal government appeared to paint these men as “depraved monsters,” leading to a public and private outcry from their families and lawyers. As many critics have pointed out, the effect of such deportations is to re-stigmatize those who have completed their sentence.
Alma David, a local lawyer representing the five men, has described near-impossible obstacles to communicating with her clients. She had been prohibited from seeing them at the maximum-security Matsapha correctional center where they are still being held to this day. David shows us how the men are only allowed to have one short video call per week. This happens under the watchful eye of prison staff, making it nearly impossible for them to have access to legal representation.
“Since when does the US embassy have jurisdiction over Eswatini’s national prisons?” – Alma David
Eswatini’s government has only exacerbated these challenges by failing to offer transparency around their deportation agreement with the United States. Observers are questioning the legal framework surrounding these deportations and whether the rights of the individuals involved are being respected.
Significant diplomatic and advocacy measures have been taken to hold accountable those responsible for the conditions that led to the deported men’s deaths. On August 21, international diplomats were able to visit Orville Etoria in prison, and he was said to be “in good spirits.” This site visit left us wondering how deportees in general are treated, and what life is like inside this for-profit correctional facility.
Etoria’s friends and family are confused by his deportation. They say it “defies logic” in light of the fact that he has devoted himself to rehabilitation after years in prison. His relatives believe that his contributions to society should have been taken into account during the decision-making process surrounding his deportation.
This case is about so much more than one person’s situation. Others advocates claim that all of these moves represent a disturbing pattern in U.S. immigration policy.
“The United States is outsourcing their detention … to purge the United States of immigrants and refugees and to make a spectacle of deportations” – Tin Thanh Nguyen
Tricia McLaughlin, another advocate, described the treatment of these men as “so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.” This statement underscores the heated partisan battleground that immigration policy has become. It shines an important light on the plight of those who have done their time yet continue to be dealt a cruel blow.