By Horizonte Cubano News
Every American administration eventually leaves office.
Its policies do not necessarily leave with it.
Documents remain.
Orders remain.
Government agreements remain.
Families remain affected by decisions made years earlier.
And sometimes unanswered questions remain too.
That is why the next administration — regardless of which political party controls the White House — should conduct a serious review of America’s third-country deportation program.
Not to seek political revenge.
Not to criminalize immigration enforcement.
Not to punish officials simply because they served a previous president.
But neither should a change of administration produce institutional amnesia.
If rights were violated, America should know.
If laws were followed, America should know that too.
Start With the Records
The first step should be remarkably simple:
Preserve the records.
The Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the State Department and other agencies involved should retain the documents necessary to reconstruct how third-country deportations were authorized and executed.
Which countries agreed to receive deportees?
What commitments did those governments make?
What did the United States provide in return?
Who approved each agreement?
What legal analysis supported it?
What protections were established for deportees?
What happened when deportees refused to remain in the receiving country?
Those questions can be answered with records.
And those records belong to the institutional history of the United States government.
Review Individual Cases
A policy can look very different when examined through individual cases.
That is why a future review should not examine only diplomatic agreements.
It should examine people.
Leonardo Sánchez.
Carlos Rodríguez López.
Darwin Hernández.
Emilio Destrade Correoso.
And others transferred to third countries under similar arrangements.
For each person, reviewers should establish a timeline.
What was the person’s immigration status?
What removal order existed?
What criminal convictions existed, if any?
Had criminal sentences been completed?
Were there pending court proceedings?
What country was identified as the destination?
When was the individual informed?
When was the attorney informed?
What happened during transportation?
Was force used?
Was medical care required?
Where did the individual ultimately end up?
And what happened afterward?
Those are factual questions.
They should have factual answers.
Criminal History Should Not Be Hidden
This review should not become an exercise in portraying every deportee as innocent.
If someone committed a serious crime, put it in the record.
If someone repeatedly violated immigration law, put it in the record.
If someone received multiple opportunities to challenge removal, document them.
If a judge issued a valid final removal order, document that too.
Accountability must work in both directions.
The government deserves a fair assessment of its actions.
So do the people subjected to those actions.
But Criminal History Does Not Eliminate Rights
A person’s criminal record does not give government unlimited authority.
That principle is fundamental.
American constitutional government was not designed to protect only popular people.
Government power is constrained precisely because people affected by it may be unpopular.
Someone can have committed a crime and still possess legal rights.
Someone can be deportable and still be entitled to whatever procedural protections the law provides.
Someone can have served a prison sentence and still deserve humane treatment.
Those ideas are not contradictory.
They are the foundation of the rule of law.
Examine What Happened in Africa
The cases involving Liberia and Equatorial Guinea deserve particular scrutiny.
The United States entered arrangements allowing people to be removed to countries other than their own.
Liberia agreed to accept third-country nationals.
Some Cuban deportees subsequently refused to remain there.
They ultimately ended up in Equatorial Guinea.
A future review should reconstruct exactly what happened.
What were they told before leaving the United States?
What happened aboard the aircraft?
What happened when they refused to disembark?
Was physical force used?
If so, by whom?
Under whose authority?
What medical evaluations occurred?
What instructions were given after Liberia did not become their final destination?
Who selected Equatorial Guinea?
When was that decision made?
And what diplomatic agreement permitted the transfer?
We should not prejudge those answers.
We should demand them.
Follow the Money
There is another element requiring scrutiny.
Money.
Third-country deportation agreements can involve American financial assistance to receiving governments.
That makes this not merely an immigration question but a taxpayer question.
How much money was committed?
Which government received it?
For what purpose?
How was it spent?
Were there auditing requirements?
Were there human-rights conditions?
Were contractors involved?
Did any private company benefit?
Were payments connected to the number of people accepted?
The American public deserves transparency when public money accompanies controversial government policy.
Congress Has a Role
A future administration should not conduct this review entirely behind closed doors.
Congress has oversight responsibilities.
Relevant committees should be able to obtain records, question officials and examine how the program operated.
That does not require turning every hearing into partisan theater.
The fundamental questions are institutional.
What authority does a president have to send deportees to third countries?
What protections must exist?
What notice should be provided?
What standards determine whether a destination is safe?
What happens when the receiving country is not the person’s country of nationality?
And should Congress establish clearer statutory boundaries for future administrations?
Those questions will remain relevant long after the current president leaves office.
Inspectors General Should Follow the Evidence
Independent oversight also matters.
Inspectors general exist partly to examine allegations of misconduct, waste, abuse and failures within government agencies.
Where credible allegations exist, investigators should examine them.
Not every allegation will be substantiated.
That needs to be understood.
Some government employees may have followed lawful orders appropriately.
Some accusations may prove inaccurate.
Others may reveal administrative failures.
And in exceptional circumstances, evidence could potentially indicate violations requiring referral to appropriate authorities.
The evidence should determine the outcome.
Politics should not.
Do Not Prosecute Policy Differences
This distinction is essential.
America cannot function if every new administration attempts to imprison officials from the previous administration simply because it disagrees with their policies.
That would be dangerous.
A harsh immigration policy is not automatically a criminal policy.
A controversial presidential decision is not automatically a crime.
An official implementing a lawful order should not automatically become a target when political power changes hands.
That would transform legitimate accountability into retaliation.
But the opposite extreme is equally dangerous.
Do Not Create Presidential Impunity
Government officials should not assume that leaving office erases unlawful conduct.
If evidence establishes that someone knowingly violated a court order, falsified records, unlawfully abused a detainee, obstructed an investigation or committed another offense, political affiliation should not provide immunity.
The same principle should apply regardless of party.
Republican administration.
Democratic administration.
Conservative official.
Progressive official.
The standard should remain:
What happened?
What does the law say?
What does the evidence establish?
That is accountability.
Families Deserve Answers Too
There is another group that should not be forgotten.
Families.
Some relatives have struggled to understand where deportees were taken and what happened after they left American custody.
A future review should establish procedures allowing families to obtain appropriate information about what happened to their relatives, consistent with privacy law and legitimate security concerns.
No mother should have to reconstruct an international deportation route from social media.
No American child should have to wonder where a parent was sent without being able to obtain basic information.
No attorney should have to search across continents to determine where a client ended up.
Government should be capable of providing basic accountability.
Correct What Went Wrong
The purpose of reviewing history is not simply to write a report.
It is to prevent repetition.
If notification procedures failed, change them.
If medical screening was inadequate, improve it.
If agreements lacked safeguards, establish safeguards.
If attorneys could not locate clients, create a tracking and notification mechanism.
If Congress lacks sufficient oversight, legislate it.
If financial arrangements were insufficiently transparent, require disclosure.
And if the existing system worked properly in particular areas, preserve what worked.
That is how institutions learn.
Accountability Is Not Revenge
America needs to rediscover the difference between accountability and retaliation.
Retaliation begins with a conclusion:
We know who is guilty. Now find something to charge them with.
That is unacceptable.
Accountability begins with a question:
What happened?
Then investigators follow the evidence.
Sometimes the answer will vindicate government officials.
Sometimes it will expose mistakes.
Sometimes it may uncover misconduct.
But the conclusion comes after the investigation, not before it.
No Political Revenge. No Institutional Amnesia.
The next president should not enter office promising revenge against immigration officers, Cabinet officials or political opponents.
That would undermine the very rule of law such an investigation should protect.
But the next president should also not say:
That belonged to the previous administration. Forget about it.
Government cannot learn if government refuses to remember.
Preserve the records.
Review the agreements.
Follow the money.
Examine the individual cases.
Interview the officials.
Interview the deportees.
Hear from their attorneys.
Hear from their families.
Determine what happened.
Correct what failed.
And where credible evidence establishes unlawful conduct, allow the appropriate independent institutions to determine the consequences.
That is not political revenge.
That is how a constitutional government examines itself.
Administrations change.
The rule of law should not.
Horizonte Cubano News — Analysis and commentary on Cuba, the United States, immigration policy and the future of the hemisphere.