Abdou Latifou, a gay man from Togo, fled to the United States after a mob assaulted him and threatened to kill him for kissing another man. In November 2025, a U.S. immigration judge ruled it was unsafe to deport him to Togo but allowed removal to a third country. In June 2026, ICE deported him instead to Sierra Leone, where gay men can face life imprisonment; he was held for two weeks under police surveillance before being flown back to Togo despite warnings he remained unsafe there. He then fled again to Ivory Coast, where he lives in fear of being recognized. His case is among 40 identified by Reuters involving LGBTQ migrants with U.S. legal protection who were deported to African countries that criminalize same-sex relations or that the State Department has called hostile to LGBT people, with at least 16 forced back to their home countries against their will.