Aylin, a 28-year-old gay woman who fled Turkey after a religious group and a family member threatened her life, had been granted withholding of removal by a US judge because returning to Turkey due to her sexuality would be unsafe. After 18 months in US detention, she says she was handcuffed and shackled and put on a flight in July that she only learned mid-flight was headed to the Central African Republic, a country she had never heard of. Unable to live safely as a gay woman in Bangui, where hostility toward LGBTQ people is widespread, she ultimately chose to return to Turkey, telling her family she had "changed her sexual orientation" and saying she hopes to eventually leave for Europe.