A Vietnamese national deported from the United States to South Sudan under a controversial third-country deportation programme left Juba on Friday to return home after Vietnam agreed to accept him, South Sudanese officials said.
Thanh Tuan Phan is the latest member of a group of eight men transferred by the United States to South Sudan in 2025 despite most having no ties to the country, a move that drew criticism from rights groups and sparked legal challenges in U.S. courts.
“Today, one of those deportees, with the acceptance of his country, Vietnam, is voluntarily returning home to be with his family,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Agok Anyar Madut told reporters.
The deportees arrived in South Sudan in July 2025 after spending weeks at a U.S. military base in Djibouti while court challenges to their removal were being heard. The group included nationals of Vietnam, Mexico, Cuba, Laos, Myanmar and South Sudan.
Madut declined to say how many deportees remain in South Sudan but said the government was working to facilitate the return of all those transferred to the country.
“The government of our republic is working day and night to make sure that whoever has been deported to the Republic of South Sudan is going to go back to their country of origin,” he said.
Speaking before his departure, Phan thanked both governments for arranging his return.
“I thank my government, the Vietnam government, for accepting me back home to my country,” he said.
“I also thank the South Sudan government, working hard day and night to coordinate with my country so that I can go back home with my family.”
Phan said he spent 25 years in prison in the United States before being deported to South Sudan.
“This has been a long journey,” he said. “My chapter in South Sudan has come to a closing, but the journey will continue on.”
The transfer of the eight men to South Sudan became a test case for the Trump administration’s effort to deport migrants to countries other than their own. Rights advocates argued the policy exposed deportees to uncertainty and potential danger in countries where they had no family or legal ties, while U.S. officials said the men had final orders of removal and had been convicted of serious crimes.
South Sudan has said it has been engaging with the deportees’ home governments to facilitate their eventual return. One Mexican national was repatriated last year, while South Sudanese authorities said a South Sudanese citizen among the group was released.
Neither Washington nor Juba has publicly disclosed the terms of the arrangement under which South Sudan accepted the deportees.
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