Laotian man deported by US to South Sudan leaves for Laos after year in detention

JUBA, South Sudan — A Laotian man deported by the United States to South Sudan left for Laos on Thursday after spending more than a year in detention in Africa, an ordeal his attorney said could have been avoided.

Thongxay Nilakout, 49, had been willing to return to Laos before the U.S. deported him to South Sudan, attorney Tin Nguyen said. A Lao consular officer had told his family that a travel document had already been issued.

Nilakout left South Sudan on Thursday afternoon for Vientiane, the capital of Laos, Nguyen said. He had been detained in Juba, South Sudan’s capital, since July 2025.

South Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it had coordinated his repatriation with the government of Laos, which provided assurances against torture or other ill-treatment upon his return.

“Thongxay’s deportation to Laos is not just a relief for his family, it is proof of what we argued from day one. He should have been sent to Laos,” Nguyen said in a statement.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it was preparing a response to questions about Nilakout’s case and requested more time to comment.

Nilakout and seven other men were sent to Africa in May 2025, rerouted first to a U.S. military base in Djibouti after a federal judge blocked their deportation to South Sudan midflight. They arrived in Juba aboard a military aircraft after a Supreme Court ruling allowed their removal.

The eight were held in a gated house under armed guard. All had criminal convictions in the U.S. but had served their prison sentences before being taken into immigration custody.

Hundreds have been deported from the U.S. to African countries that aren’t their home nations, according to advocacy groups Human Rights First and Refugees International, which have been monitoring the deportations.

Around a dozen African countries have accepted third-country deportees from the U.S., some in exchange for millions of dollars in payments, though details of the South Sudan deal remain murky.

The choice of South Sudan was particularly controversial given its poor human rights record and political instability. Armed conflict displaced more than half a million people there in 2025, according to the United Nations.

Nilakout resettled in the U.S. as a child in 1980 after his family fled Laos, spending time first in a refugee camp in Thailand, his attorney said.

In 1995, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole for his role in the murder of a German tourist during an armed robbery in southern California. He was 17 at the time of the crime.

His attorney said he became eligible for parole after a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling found mandatory life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders unconstitutional. He was released in 2023 and was working as a restaurant cook when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took him into custody in March 2025.

Four of the original eight deportees remain in South Sudan, including two Burmese nationals and two Cuban nationals. A Congolese national deported separately has since joined them, bringing the total to five, Nguyen said.

South Sudan’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that five third-country deportees remain in South Sudan and said it was working with the governments concerned and international partners to facilitate their safe and humane repatriation.

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Falzetta reported from Nairobi, Kenya.