The U.S. decision to deport former Ecuadorian Interior Minister Jose Serrano reveals how the Trump administration’s controversial deportation practices are vulnerable to political manipulation. The deportation, which occurred despite a court finding that Mr Serrano could be tortured in Ecuador, was an important political objective of current Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, a right-wing political figure who is an important Trump administration ally in South America, and brings renewed scrutiny of Ecuador’s rule of law, as well as its cooperation with the U.S on migration and asylum.
Serrano Deportation
In August, José Serrano, a high profile Ecuadorian politician who served as interior minister in the administration of former President Rafael Correa, was deported by the United States after more than a year in ICE detention. His career in Ecuador was noted for his crusading efforts to tackle criminal gangs as well as for controversies over corruption allegations. The current government has accused Serrano of involvement in the 2023 assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, charges that Serrano and his supporters have decried as politically motivated.
After applying for asylum in the United States, Serrano was eventually granted protection under the Convention against Torture by a U.S immigration judge in May 2026. However, three immigration appeals judges appointed by the Trump administration summarily overturned the ruling in August, paving the way for his deportation hours later. According to the New York Times, the case highlights how the administration has tightened its control over the U.S immigration court system, raising concerns about the use of immigration proceedings for political ends.
The political dimensions in Ecuador of Serrano’s deportation was underscored by President Noboa’s immediate reaction–taking to X to state “We said it, we delivered,” before addressing former President Correa with the warning “You’re next, right now.”
Serrano’s treatment upon arrival in Ecuador raises serious concerns. He has reportedly been held in solitary confinement in a maximum security prison, and no independent doctor has been allowed to examine him. In an email to the GDP, Serrano’s daughter wrote: “15 to 20 hooded guards without insignia, together with an official wearing a Presidency badge, forced him to kneel, shaved his head, stripped him naked and filmed him, saying the images were ‘for the President.’ They then dragged him naked to an open field, where he believed he would then be executed, and beat him.”
Growing Cooperation with the United States
The Serrano case is taking place against a backdrop of growing cooperation between Ecuador and the United States on immigration matters. In 2025 Ecuador agreed to cooperate with the United States in receiving asylum seekers from third countries. Under an Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA), made public on 17 November 2025, Ecuador had received approximately 121 people as of June 2026.
The scale of potential removals extends well beyond those who have arrived so far, however. According to data compiled by Mobile Pathways, since January 2025 U.S immigration judges have pretermitted the asylum cases of 19,625 people and designated Ecuador as their country of removal. Those affected include 4,917 Venezuelans, 3,011 Mexicans, and 2,528 Colombians, alongside nationals outside the Americas, including Vietnam and Nigeria.
Under an ACA, asylum seekers transferred to a third country should have a genuine opportunity to seek international protection there. However, Ecuador’s agreement with the United States raises questions about whether such protection is effectively accessible in practice, particularly given recent reforms that have tightened access to asylum and expanded the grounds for expedited deportation [see “2025 Legal Amendments” below]. Such concerns are central to the case of U.T v. Bondi, litigation before the U.S District Court of Columbia challenging the U.S government’s legal framework for implementing ACAs, including its designation of participating countries as providing a “full and fair” asylum procedure. (For more: see Third Country Deportation Watch).
Ecuador’s cooperation with the U.S expanded further in May 2026, when the two governments concluded a second agreement concerning the deportation of third country nationals. Unlike the ACA, this arrangement provides for Ecuador to “provide appropriate migratory processing for the transfer of third-country nationals to their country of origin, resident, or other destination, subject to the assurance provided herein.”
To date, the GDP has not found evidence demonstrating the use of detention in connection with removals under these agreements. However, detention has played an important role in other countries implementing similar third country removal arrangements.
Hardening Enforcement Policies
Ecuador’s decision to accept third-country deportees from the United States stands in stark contrast to the Naboa administration’s expressed alarm over migration. An influx of Venezuelans fleeing the growing social crisis in their country has become the focus of official narratives that associate foreign nationals with rising crime and insecurity. One legislator commented in 2024: “We are concerned that since 2008 thousands of foreigners with criminal records have entered the country, endangering the peace of Ecuadorians and contributing to drug trafficking and organised crime.”
Since late 2025, Ecuadorian authorities have conducted numerous immigration raids under the operation name “Operativo Pandora,” apprehending hundreds of foreign nationals for lacking valid documentation. According to the Ministry of the Interior, 18,961 operations were conducted between 1 January and 19 September 2026 alone–to “verify compliance with immigration regulations, identify irregularities, and apply the corresponding measures.”
Local media reports indicate that the operations have resulted in the detention of foreign nationals and, in some cases, deportation. On 19 December 2025, for example, authorities detained 31 Venezuelan and Colombian nationals during an operation in Guayaquil.
In a shadow report to the UN Committee on Migrant Workers, a coalition of NGOs document the involvement of Ecuador’s military in immigration control–part of its wider involvement in public security during the state of emergency. This, they note, is “generating arbitrary detention of migrants in militarised contexts.” They refer to the case of Yojalber Ramírez, a Venezuelan national who was detained and tortured by military personnel in the province of Bolívar in December 2024.
The government’s approach has also extended to foreign nationals serving prison sentences. In July 2025, Ecuador deported some 1,000 Colombian prisoners without individual examinations of each individual’s case, presenting the move as an effort to reduce prison overcrowding and to strengthen security. Taking to X, the country’s Interior Minister stated that “this action is part of our zero-tolerance policy towards organised crime. Those who threaten the security of the country have no place here.” Responding to the large-scale deportation effort, the government in Bogota branded the operation a violation of international law and an “unfriendly gesture.”
In its review of the country in 2026, the UN Committee on Migrant Workers noted many of these issues, as well as concerns regarding the conditions that such non-nationals face in detention:
“The Committee notes with concern the lack of independent oversight and effective monitoring mechanisms in locations where migrants who have been refused entry are held and in detention centres and other facilities where migrants are deprived of their liberty, as well as allegations of torture, ill-treatment and deaths in custody of detained migrants, and the lack of effective investigations, including into cases reported in prisons.”
2025 Legal Amendments
While Ecuador has positioned itself as a regional leader in implementing the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, serving as a GCM Champion Country, the Noboa government has simultaneously introduced controversial reforms to its migration legislation–the Organic Law on Human Mobility (Ley Orgánica de Movilidad Humana)–in October 2025, consolidating a “securitized migration regime.”
Amongst the amendments was the introduction of expedited deportation on the grounds of “threat or risk” to internal security or the state (article 141 A), as well as deportation on the grounds of “internal unrest,” which authorises the accelerated deportation of a foreigner deprived of their liberty, even without a final sentence (i.e., even if an individual is in pretrial detention) (article 141 B). The penalty for deportation under 141 B is a forty-year prohibition on returning to Ecuador.
Although article 141 A provides the right to a defence, the short time frame (hearings are to be held within 24 hours) raises questions about the practical ability to obtain representation and seek judicial protection before removal. An investigation by Lupa Media documents numerous cases of hearings being conducted mere hours after notification of a deportation order, highlighting the practical ineffectiveness of this procedural safeguard.
Noting these amendments, the UN Committee on Migrant Workers expressed concern “about possible violations of due process and the rights to an individualized assessment, to legal assistance and to remedies with suspensive effect, as well as violations of the principles of non-refoulement and proportionality and of the prohibition on collective expulsions,” and urged the state party to review these provisions.
Further, authorities broadened the grounds for deeming an asylum application “inadmissible” by introducing the ambiguous concept of “illegitimate applications”–those submitted by persons who are considered a threat or risk to public security or the structure of the state “based on an official statement issued by the competent security authority” (article 103). As one analysis of this reform notes:
“This provision is legally precarious for several reasons. First, it subordinates eligibility for refugee status—a fundamental human right—to the assessment of a security apparatus composed of the police and intelligence services…. By shifting this verification to the admissibility phase, Ecuador allows the police and intelligence services to completely block access to the asylum procedure. If the Ministry of the Interior issues a “security alert” against an applicant, the competent asylum authority loses its jurisdiction to examine the merits of the persecution claim and must declare the application inadmissible.”
CONTEXT
Immigration Detention: Ecuador’s Legal Framework
In 2008, Ecuador adopted a new Constitution which recognises the right to migrate and established the principle of “universal citizenship.” Article 40, for example, provides that “no human being shall be identified or considered as illegal because of his/her migratory status.”
However, this has sat uneasily alongside Ecuador’s migration legislation, which has provided for a more restrictive regime. The Organic Law on Human Mobility (Ley Orgánica de Movilidad Humana), which was introduced in 2017 replacing the 1971 Migration Law (Ley de Migracion) and which has been amended on several occasions since, provides numerous grounds for someone to be deemed inadmissible, and initially provided for people awaiting deportation to be confined in reception centres “determined by the immigration control authority” (article 144).
This latter provision was addressed in several Constitutional Court judgements such as 159-11-JH/19, which ruled that people cannot be deprived of their liberty for migration-control purposes, and that facilities used for this purpose are prohibited under Ecuador’s constitutional and legal framework. This reference to reception centres in article 144 has since been removed. While the Interior Minister proposed the creation of facilities to ensure deportation ahead of the 2025 reforms, this specific proposal was not included.
In 2023, amendments were passed which, inter alia, authorised the apprehension of a foreign national who breaches precautionary measures (such as periodic reporting) imposed during non-admission proceedings (article 138 A). The law also permits the use of “inadmissibility zones” for up to 24 hours for persons subject to inadmissibility proceedings (articles 136 A and 136 B establish safeguards governing the conditions of stay in these zones and the rights of individuals held there).
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