Witnesses say men were hooded and beaten in Equatorial Guinea. The autocratic government there is a partner in President Trump’s deportation program. A video shared by a deportee shows a police officer pointing a firearm at a man at a hotel in Equatorial Guinea used as a makeshift prison for U.S. deportees.

The confrontation was over a confiscated phone and ended without shots fired. Sept. 18, 2026, 11:10 a.m. ET Two men deported to Equatorial Guinea by the Trump administration were hooded, bound, beaten with guns and shoved down a flight of stairs recently by police officers at a remote hotel where immigrants are being held indefinitely, according to witnesses and lawyers. The deportees said the beatings and subsequent arrests were intended to stop them from telling the outside world about the deteriorating conditions and growing violence inside the hotel, which has become a de facto prison for 29 men and women from different countries. Experts and human rights advocates predicted such abuse after the Trump administration began deporting people to authoritarian countries where they had no ties or, in many cases, legal rights.

Equatorial Guinea, like other countries cooperating with the U.S. deportation program, is notorious for human rights violations, including torture and arbitrary arrest, according to the State Department. Equatorial Guinea, a small autocracy on Africa’s western coast, is one of many countries that have agreed to accept immigrants deported from the United States. With no legal status in the country, the deportees are being held in the Hotel Bamy — a dilapidated building on the outskirts of the city of Malabo.

Armed police officers stand guard 24 hours a day and frequently harass and intimidate people there with impunity, deportees said."We are in imminent danger now and can’t keep living like this," Ahmed Soliman, a deportee at the hotel, said in a text message to The New York Times this month. "I’m tired and genuinely afraid for my life." He was one of the two men who were later beaten and hooded, witnesses and the human rights group Amnesty International said. Though the hotel operates as a prison, none of the immigrants are charged with a crime in Equatorial Guinea. The indefinite detention reflects a contradiction at the heart of many arrangements between Washington and foreign governments.

Equatorial Guinea agreed to take people but has given them no legal rights or documents that would let them live or work there, even temporarily. American judges had ruled that a majority of the immigrants in the hotel could not be deported to their home countries because they were likely to be tortured or persecuted. For years, officials allowed many such people to stay in the United States by default, despite their lack of legal standing.

The Trump administration ended that policy and is working to find countries, like Equatorial Guinea, willing to accept them. Videos and interviews show that police aggression inside the hotel escalated in recent weeks and peaked on Sept. 11. The police put burlap sacks over the two men’s faces, tied their hands with rope, beat them with guns and shoved them down the stairs as several deportees watched.

The beatings were recounted by multiple witnesses and lawyers. The police officers shouted: "Where is the phone? Where is the phone!" witnesses said. The immigrants had been using cellphones to speak to journalists and lawyers about the lack of running water, nutritious food or medical care.

The beating, witnesses said, followed the release of a video, first reported by Reuters, showing the deteriorating situation in the hotel. Police also ransacked hotel rooms, searching for cellphones, deportees said. The deportees spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the threat of retaliation.

Western lawyers including Bella Mosselmans, Alexandra Smolyar and Meredyth Yoon, who represent some of the deportees, discussed details of the beatings and arrests. A local lawyer spoke ...