A New York man who was deported two months ago from the U.S. to Eswatini has now returned to his native Jamaica, where he has not lived since childhood.
The deportation of Orville Isaac Etoria, 62, was carried out under the Trump administration’s “third-country deportation policy,” which means that undocumented immigrants could be deported to other countries, rather than their country of origin. Etoria served 25 years in prison after being convicted of fatally shooting a man in Brooklyn, according to The New York Times. But through the Hudson Link program and Mercy College, he was able to study and received a bachelor’s degree in prison. He had also begun a Master’s Degree program with Union Theological Seminary. However, in 2009, he was stripped of his legal permanent resident status while still serving his prison term when an immigration judge issued a final order of removal, leaving him without documented status in the United States. When he was released in 2021, he was able to stay in the country if he checked in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regularly, which he had done.
After serving time and finishing his parole, he walked free in New York and worked as a case manager at a men’s shelter, according to The Legal Aid Society. Earlier in 2025, ICE required that he obtain a passport from Jamaica, which the nation issued to him. But rather than allow him to pursue a path to citizenship, Etoria was detained during his yearly check-in and deported to Eswatini, a nation in Southern Africa with which he has no ties and has never lived. He was imprisoned there for two and a half months with no criminal charge.
The Department of Homeland Security cited a June Supreme Court decision, which allowed the deportation of people they deem to be “criminal illegal aliens,” which is how they described Etoria and four other men deported with him. The Eswatini government repatriated Etoria to Jamaica on September 28 with the assistance of the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration, Thabile Mdluli, an Eswatini government spokesperson, told the Associated Press in a statement.
“We are relieved that Mr. Etoria is finally free after enduring over two months of unlawful imprisonment in Eswatini without access to counsel,” said Mia Unger, staff attorney in the Immigrant Justice Team at The Legal Aid Society. “His illegal deportation to Eswatini should never have happened when he was in possession of a valid Jamaican passport.”
“Moreover,” Unger continued, “his incarceration in a maximum-security prison without charge, coupled with intentional efforts to prevent him from accessing legal counsel over the past several weeks, is deeply troubling. Mr. Etoria now begins the difficult process of readjusting to life in his country of birth, Jamaica, after nearly five decades living in the United States.”