AP details one family’s globe-spanning migration and deportation saga

By Megan Janetsky

In March, Mexico & Central America correspondent Megan Janetsky received a panicked message from Suraiya Hussaini. She was scrambling for any information about her younger brother Amir, who was being deported back to Afghanistan — the country they had both fled.

Janetsky had been reporting on the deportation of hundreds of migrants from Afghanistan and other countries into a “legal black hole” in Panama and Costa Rica. Over the following months, she stayed in contact with Suraiya, Amir and their sister Bano — all in their native language, Dari — while working to earn the family’s trust and understand the intricacies of their 17,500-mile migration.

She pieced together how the family was separated and deported to different countries under the Trump administration and what happened next. Janetsky traveled to Panama to interview Suraiya and worked to gain access to Amir, who was living in hiding in Kabul. She also obtained key government documents and deportation records that shed light on the complexities of their cases.

The resulting story was published in both English and Spanish, weaving together exclusive testimony and on-the-ground reporting to show how broken systems are affecting real people caught between borders.