A plane carrying people deported from the United States was en route to the Central African Republic on Friday, according to an organization monitoring such flights and a lawyer familiar with the case, with Iranian, Afghan, Turkish and Georgian nationals on board.

These deportations to "third countries" have become an essential element of the anti-immigration policy pursued by US President Donald Trump, even though their legality is being challenged in court in the United States and abroad.

The advice from the U.S. State Department to its citizens regarding the Central African Republic, a country ravaged by violence, is as follows: "Do not go to the Central African Republic, for any reason whatsoever."

Donald Trump has called Iran, with which Washington is currently at war, a "terrorist regime" but nevertheless continues to expel Iranians who have fled the country, including at least two women, according to the American daily New York Times.

The flight took off Thursday evening from Alexandria, Louisiana (southeastern United States), and is scheduled to first stop in Ghana, which is itself a hub for American deportations to third countries, according to ICE Flight Monitor, affiliated with the non-profit organization Human Rights First.

It is not yet known whether some people will be disembarked from the plane in Ghana or if they will all continue on to the Central African Republic, said Alma David, an American immigration lawyer.

The Trump administration continues to expand the number of people affected by deportations – including those with legal protections – and the countries to which they can be sent.

Deportees and lawyers have described squalid detention conditions in the United States, inhumane treatment in Ghana, and indefinite detention in Eswatini.

From Ghana and Equatorial Guinea, other hubs of the American deportation process, some people have been sent back to their countries of origin, even though American judges had determined that they were in danger there.

It is unclear what will happen to the people expelled once they arrive in the Central African Republic, under what appears to be the first agreement reached between Bangui and Washington, which has signed numerous expulsion agreements in Africa and elsewhere.

When contacted by AFP, the Central African authorities did not respond.

Among those expelled by the United States from the Central African Republic, a poor country ravaged by violence, are people benefiting from legal protections, including a "suspension of deportation," a status that confers fewer rights than asylum but had nevertheless been considered a "victory" in immigration courts under previous US administrations.

The people deported to the Central African Republic come "from various countries, including Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey and Georgia," Ms. David told AFP.

In recent years, a United Nations peacekeeping mission, Rwandan troops and mercenaries from the Russian paramilitary group Wagner have helped to improve the security situation in the Central African Republic.

But anti-government fighters and armed groups are still active in this unstable, mineral-rich country.