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MALABO, Equatorial Guinea — <\/span>At first glance, the hotel looks like any other on this tropical island off the Central African coast, with its palm tree-lined driveway, marble-floored foyer and portrait of the oil-rich country\u2019s president hanging behind a mahogany reception desk.<\/p>\n Yet the eerily empty Bamy Hotel is not a refuge for adventure-seeking tourists or international business travelers these days. Since late last year, only a small number of people have been staying there, and they aren’t on vacation. They are being held against their will<\/a>.<\/p>\n Under an opaque $7.5 million deal<\/a> with the Trump administration, Equatorial Guinea’s all-powerful president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has turned this hotel owned by his family into a prison for asylum seekers deported from the United States.<\/p>\n The hotel is just a way station, though. Of the at least 32 people imprisoned there since November \u2014 all of whom had previously been granted protection from U.S. judges, their lawyers said \u2014 25 have been forced to go back to home countries across Africa where their lives might be in danger. The rest face pressure from authorities to leave.<\/p>\n \u201cGovernment people would come all the time and say: Where is your passport? You need to go back to your own country,\u201d said a 26-year-old man from an East African country imprisoned at the hotel. Out of fear of retaliation, he spoke on condition of anonymity, as did two other deportees interviewed by The Associated Press.<\/p>\n The Trump administration uses deportations to third countries<\/a> as a legal loophole, immigration lawyers say, to indirectly force asylum seekers back to their home countries.<\/p>\n Because Equatorial Guinea is run by an authoritarian government \u2014 as are some other countries that have signed similar deals \u2014 it is difficult for foreign journalists to visit and report directly on conditions there. AP traveled to the island of Bioko as part of a recent visit by the first American pope<\/a>, and is the only international news organization to visit the hotel detaining migrants.<\/p>\n Trapped for now in a country many had never heard of before arriving, men and women from Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Mauritania wander the hotel\u2019s long corridors and gaze out the windows at the shimmering pool they are not allowed to use.<\/p>\n They haven\u2019t faced any physical abuse, but they feel intense psychological pressure knowing they are likely headed back to home countries they fear. <\/p>\n \u201cI am scared and depressed,\u201d said the East African man.<\/p>\n Because of his ethnicity and the fact he fled his home country, he said he would be imprisoned or killed if forced to return. All of the asylum seekers at the hotel face a high risk of persecution back home, human rights experts say. <\/p>\n Under a series of murky and often-secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to nearly two dozen countries that are not their own, advocates say, all part of the broad U.S. crackdown on immigration. The countries with agreements are mostly in the developing world, according to the group Third Country Deportation Watch, including roughly a dozen in Africa<\/a>. Experts say countries accepting the deportees may be doing so to earn goodwill in negotiations with the U.S. over trade, migration<\/a> or aid<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Trump administration declined to comment on the details of its deal with Equatorial Guinea. A State Department spokesperson said, \u201cwe remain unwavering in our commitment to end illegal and mass immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n The Obiang administration did not respond to a request seeking comment.<\/p>\n As the man from East Africa at the Bamy Hotel recounted his journey, a government minder who spoke little English sat nearby, scrolling on his phone in an otherwise empty conference room.<\/p>\n After traveling from Africa to Brazil, the man said, he arrived in August 2024 at the U.S. border, where he was detained. He then was shuffled between immigration centers in California, Arizona and Louisiana \u2014 before landing in Equatorial Guinea almost six months ago.<\/p>\n The deportees’ daily routines at the hotel are mundane, though the setting makes it all seem surreal, he said.<\/p>\n They sleep in fancy rooms that rarely get cleaned, he said, and they are served rice and meat at white cloth tables set up inside the hotel’s restaurant. After being sickened by the food several times, the East African man said he eats the bare minimum. <\/p>\n A local lawyer brings new toothbrushes, cellphone SIM cards, and, for women, sanitary products.<\/p>\n Medical care has been uneven. The East African man was driven to the hospital right away after complaining of an eye problem. But when he came down with malaria and typhoid, he was not taken to a hospital until his condition had greatly deteriorated, requiring an IV. Other detainees have had similar experiences, he said.<\/p>\n Recently, the East African man complained to a police officer about his situation. The officer responded by saying his problems would go away if he went to the hotel\u2019s fourth floor and jumped out the window.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat can I do now? It\u2019s become worse,\u201d he said, his frail body shaking. \u201cI started losing my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n Equatorial Guinea is one of the richest countries in Africa thanks to its oil resources. It is also rife with corruption and human rights abuses, according to U.S. officials.<\/p>\n A former Spanish colony, the country fell into economic despair after gaining independence in 1968. Its fate shifted in the 1990s when U.S. companies started drilling for oil along its vast coastline. The subsequent boom transformed the economy, yet over half the population still lives in poverty. <\/p>\n The country’s oil-fueled wealth<\/a> has been largely pocketed by Obiang and his family, according to rights groups. Obiang\u2019s 57-year-old son and heir apparent, Teodoro \u201cTeodorin\u201d Obiang Nguema, chronicles his lavish lifestyle on TikTok \u2014 soaking in infinity pools, feasting on lobster, traveling on private jets \u2014 even as citizens of Equatorial Guinea are banned from the platform.<\/p>\n