Beldangi refugee camp, Nepal CNN —

More than two dozen refugees from Bhutan have been left in a unique legal limbo after they were deported by the US back to the tiny Himalayan nation they once fled – only for it to reject them a second time.

The refugees are Lhotshampa, a Nepali-speaking ethnic minority who were expelled from Bhutan in the 1990s. After decades in refugee camps in eastern Nepal, more than 100,000 of them were legally resettled in the US, Australia, Canada and other countries under a UN-led program that began in 2007.

Until very recently, the US had not deported a single person to Bhutan in years, according to data from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), because the Bhutanese government was unwilling to repatriate its refugees, who were stripped of their citizenship when they fled.

But since March, more than two dozen Lhotshampa have been deported from the US back to Bhutan – though the country is still refusing to take them in, according to several deportees, advocates and the Nepali government. Many have ended up back in the same Nepal refugee camps where as children they dreamed of a better life abroad.

Chiranjivi Ghimire

Ramesh Sanyasi, 24, was born in a refugee camp and migrated to the US when he was 10 years old with his parents and older sister. Sanyasi was living in Pennsylvania, a hub for refugees from Bhutan, and working in an Amazon warehouse until last year, when he said he was arrested while borrowing his friend’s car during a night out.

Sanyasi was convicted of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and handing false ID to law enforcement, court records show. In April of this year, after spending eight months in jail, Sanyasi said he was put on a one-way flight to New Delhi, India, then to Paro, Bhutan.

When he arrived in Bhutan, he said, local authorities took him and two other refugees to the border with India, where they paid someone to take the men to Panitanki, a town on the India-Nepal border, giving the deportees 30,000 Indian rupees (about $350) each.

Sanyasi said he and the other deportees paid someone to smuggle them across the Mechi River into Nepal.

“Life here is tough. I’m living without any identification documents, which makes everything challenging. I can’t even withdraw money sent by relatives because I lack proper ID,” Sanyasi told CNN in an interview from Beldangi refugee camp, where he is now staying.

“My days are spent idly, with no clear purpose or direction,” Sanyasi said. “For now, I’m surviving on money sent from the US, but once that runs out, I don’t know what will happen.” His sister, mother and father all remain in the US.

Sanyasi and the other deportees were not undocumented and came to the US legally. Most – if not all – have been convicted of crimes of varying severity, though many served their full sentences before being deported. Under US law, non-citizens can lose their visas if convicted of certain crimes.

Ramesh Sanyasi, 24, was born in a refugee camp in Nepal and resettled in the US with his family when he was 10 years old. Chiranjivi Ghimire/CNN

They now find themselves in an extraordinary diplomatic gray zone, with no documentation for either the US, Bhutan or Nepal, where many are currently residing.

Gopal Krishna Siwakoti, Nepal-based president of the International Institute for Human Rights, Environment and Development, estimates 30 people have been deported by the US to Bhutan so far, while at least two dozen more are in detention facilities awaiting deportation.

All the refugees deported to Bhutan were expelled to India once they arrived, Siwakoti said. Most of them made their way to Nepal, though some are still in India. Many are in hiding, he said.

Four of the US deportees have now been ordered deported by a second country, after they were arrested and briefly detained by the Nepali government for crossing the border illegally. However, Tikaram Dhakal, the director of Nepal’s Department of Immigration, told CNN it has nowhere to deport these people.

“We are in a dilemma: the US is unlikely to accept them back, and deporting them to Bhutan is not straightforward either.”

Nowhere to go

Bhutan, a small Buddhist kingdom of roughly 800,000 nestled between India and Tibet in the Himalayas, is often revered for its sustainable approach to tourism and national happiness index, but it has a dark history of crackdowns on ethnic minorities.

In the late 1970s, the government of Bhutan began cracking down on ethnic Nepalis who had migrated to southern Bhutan in the 19th century, introducing a series of discriminatory policies designed to exclude Lhotshampa.

From 1989, the government pushed the “Bhutanization” of the country by enforcing a dress code and banning the Nepali language, aggressively clamping down on anyone who resisted. Faced with abuse, threats and coercion, the Lhotshampa fled.

It has long been a bedrock of US and international law not to send someone to a country where they could face persecution. But the administration of US President Donald Trump has increasingly deported people to states with grave human rights records, such as Libya and South Sudan.

Siwakoti said it was a “mistake on the part of the US government” to deport the Lhotshampa back to Bhutan, “because these people don’t have a country.”

“These people’s belonging, their existence, their ownership of the country, was completely written off – formally, legally – by the Royal Government of Bhutan,” Siwakoti said. “They became completely stateless.”

Rejected by Bhutan, several US deportees have now returned to the refugee camp where they lived as children. Chiranjivi Ghimire/CNN

The Nepali government says it can’t accept US deportees — but they have nowhere else to go. Chiranjivi Ghimire/CNN

Bhutan has refused to receive Lhotshampa refugees. But during Trump’s presidency, countries that have historically accepted few – if any – deportees from the US are now opening their doors, under pressure of sanctions and tariffs.

Bhutan was initially included in a draft “red” list prepared by US diplomatic and security officials of 11 countries whose citizens would be barred from entering the US, which was published in March by The New York Times.

But when the final list of 19 countries targeted for full or partial travel bans was released in June, Bhutan was not included.

The first deportation flight from the US to Bhutan was at the end of March.

Siwakoti said he believes Bhutan accepted the deportees to appease the US, but never intended to let them stay.

Chiranjivi Ghimire

ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions from CNN.

A US State Department spokesperson said it would not discuss its diplomatic communications with other governments.

“Foreign governments will make decisions regarding the immigration status of aliens removed from the United States in accordance with their respective domestic laws and international obligations,” the spokesperson said.

CNN was unable to reach Bhutan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment. The Consulate of Bhutan in New York did not respond to an email request from CNN.

Dhakal, the Nepali government official, said Nepal cannot accept the refugees and is currently in discussions with the US government to come up with a solution.

‘Family separation is not a solution’

The Beldangi camp looks different from when Ashish Subedi last lived here a decade ago. There is electricity; his father’s bamboo hut is now fortified with metal; and running water comes from a tap, rather than a well. Dogs, cows and chickens roam the dusty roads.

Subedi never imagined he would be back here, in the same place where he and his family took refuge years ago. Subedi was convicted of a felony sexual offense in Ohio in 2022, according to court records, and served his two-year sentence before he was deported back to Bhutan in March.

Ashish Subedi has now been ordered deported from a second country, after Nepal said he and other deportees couldn’t stay. Chiranjivi Ghimire/CNN

Subedi and other refugees are not permitted to leave the Beldangi refugee camp. Chiranjivi Ghimire/CNN

He is among the deportees who were arrested by Nepali authorities, though they were eventually released from detention after Subedi’s father filed a habeas corpus petition with Nepal’s Supreme Court.

Without travel documents, it is unlikely he and the others will be expelled from Nepal anytime soon. In the meantime, the government is not permitting them to leave the refugee camps.

“We are living in darkness, with no clear path forward,” Subedi told CNN. “The lack of documentation and restricted movement make it nearly impossible to rebuild our lives. We feel trapped, with limited options and a constant sense of insecurity.”

Subedi said he hopes to return to the US, where his wife and 3-year-old daughter still live.

“Being sent back to Bhutan is not an option for us – it would likely mean imprisonment,” he said.

Ashish Subedi has noticed some changes since he last lived in the refugee camp a decade ago. His father’s hut now has electricity and running water. Chiranjivi Ghimire/CNN

Back in the US, the recent deportations have sent shock waves through communities of Bhutanese refugees.

Tilak Niroula, a refugee and community leader in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, said Bhutanese refugees have embraced life in the US and laid down roots there.

“Since we were forcefully evicted from Bhutan, and we do not have a country to call home, we call this country, the US, our home,” he said.

Niroula said he and other advocates want anyone who commits a crime to face justice – but insists deportation isn’t the answer.

“If somebody got involved in any kind of criminal activities, we do have a due process,” he said.

“Family separation is not a solution.”

By Amarachi Orie, CNN

(CNN) — Tech giant Meta has apologized and said it has fixed an auto-translation issue that led one of its social media platforms to mistakenly announce the death of Indian politician Siddaramaiah.

The chief minister of the southwestern Indian state of Karnataka posted on Instagram Tuesday in the local Kannada language, saying he was paying his respects to the late Indian actress B. Saroja Devi. He also paid tribute to the actress on Facebook and X.

However, Meta’s auto-translation tool inaccurately translated the Instagram post to suggest that Siddaramaiah, who uses just one name, was the one who “passed away.”

“Chief Minister Siddaramaiah passed away yesterday multilingual star, senior actress B. Took darshan of Sarojadevi’s earthly body and paid his last respects,” the erroneous, garbled translation read, CNN affiliate News 18 reported.

A Meta spokesperson told news agency Press Trust of India Thursday: “We fixed an issue that briefly caused this inaccurate Kannada translation. We apologize that this happened.”

Politician calls for use of ‘grossly misleading’ tool to be halted

Also on Thursday, Siddaramaiah criticized the auto-translation tool as “dangerous” in posts on Facebook and X, adding that such “negligence” from tech giants “can harm public understanding & trust.”

His posts included a photo of an email his office sent to Meta (META) voicing “a serious concern” about the auto-translation tool on its platforms, “particularly Facebook and Instagram.”

The email, which had the subject line “Urgent Request to Address Faulty Auto-Translation of Kannada Content on Meta Platforms,” urged the tech company to “temporarily suspend” its auto-translation tool for content written in Kannada “until the translation accuracy is reliably improved.”

His office also requested that Meta work with Kannada language experts to improve the feature.

Kannada is the official language of Karnataka and is also spoken in bordering Indian states. Some 45 million people spoke Kannada as their first language in the early 2010s, and another 15 million spoke it as their second language, based on the latest available data.

The email from Siddaramaiah’s office calls Meta’s auto-translation from Kannada to English “frequently inaccurate and, in some cases, grossly misleading.”

“This poses a significant risk, especially when public communications, official statements, or important messages from the Chief Minister and the Government are incorrectly translated. It can lead to misinterpretation among users, many of whom may not realise that what they are reading is an automated and faulty translation rather than the original message,” it continues.

“Given the sensitivity of public communication, especially from a constitutional functionary like the Chief Minister, such misrepresentations due to flawed translation mechanisms are unacceptable,” it adds.

As of Friday, the auto-translation of Siddaramaiah’s Instagram post reads: “The multilingual star, senior actress B Sarojadevi who passed away yesterday, paid his last respects,” which still appears to be inaccurate.

CNN has reached out to Meta and the Karnataka chief minister’s office for further comment.

The incident comes months after the US tech giant apologized for a technical error that led some Instagram users to see graphic, violent videos.

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By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — “Love Island USA” contestant Cierra Ortega is no longer looking for love on the reality program.

Ortega’s exit, which came a week before the dating show’s Season 7 finale, was announced in a voiceover that said she left the show for a “personal situation,” without any further explanation.

The timing was notable because last week, two social media posts from 2015 and 2023 began circulating online that appeared to show Ortega using a racial slur while contemplating cosmetic procedures she wanted to get, according to the Daily Mail.

Asked about Ortega’s exit, a representative for Peacock, the platform on which “Love Island USA” streams, told CNN, “We won’t be providing a comment.”

On social media, Ortega’s parents spoke out about the “cruel messages” that their daughter has received on social media during the past week and leading up to her abrupt departure from the show during Sunday’s episode.

“We’ve seen the posts, the headlines, the hurt and the hate. And while Cierra hasn’t seen any of it yet, we have. And so have the people who love her,” the statement, posted to Ortega’s Instagram story Sunday night, read. “We’re not here to justify or ignore what’s surfaced. We understand why people are upset, and we know accountability matters. But what’s happening online right now has gone far beyond that.”

Ortega’s parents continued to write that the “threats” to her friends, family and supporters are “uncalled for” and that “no one deserves that kind of hate, no matter what mistake they’ve made.”

Over 17,000 people signed an online petition calling for her exit from the series.

Since Ortega is still sequestered following her exit, her parents wrote in their statement, “she hasn’t had the chance to process any of this or speak for herself.”

“But we know our daughter. We know her heart. And when she returns, we believe she’ll face this with honesty, growth, and grace,” they added. “Until then, we’re simply asking for compassion. For patience. For basic human decency.”

Love Island USA will conclude its season on July 13.

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