Ghana Receives U.S.-Deported Migrants, Raising Legal and Human Rights Questions
Fourteen West Africans, mostly Nigerians, were flown to Ghana by U.S. authorities; Accra says it accepted them on humanitarian grounds while lawyers and Nigerian officials dispute details.
DAKAR, Senegal — Ghana has become the latest African country to receive migrants deported by the United States to a third country, a development that has prompted legal challenges and renewed scrutiny of U.S. removal practices.
Ghanaian authorities said Monday that 14 migrants who arrived from the United States last week — 13 Nigerians and one Gambian, none of whom were originally from Ghana — have been returned to their home countries. Lawyers for four of the men said they were still detained in Ghana as of Monday evening, and the differing accounts could not immediately be reconciled.
Court documents filed in a U.S. lawsuit on behalf of some of the deportees say the men were awakened in the middle of the night on Sept. 5 and were not told where they were going until hours into a flight aboard a U.S. military cargo plane. The suit alleges some deportees were restrained in "straitjackets" for 16 hours and were detained in "abysmal and deplorable" conditions after arrival. Ghanaian officials have denied knowledge of the in-flight claims and rejected the characterization of post-arrival detention conditions.
Ghana’s Foreign Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, said the country accepted the group "purely on humanitarian principle" and because they were fellow West Africans. "We just could not continue to take the suffering of our fellow West Africans," he said, adding that Ghana stepped in after other West African nations rejected a U.S. request for assistance. Felix Kwakye Ofosu, Ghana’s minister for government communications, told the Associated Press the migrants "have since left for their home countries," without providing further details on timing or destination.
Nigeria said it was not briefed by Ghana or the United States about the deportations and expressed surprise that Nigerian citizens were sent to a third country. "What we have only rejected is deportation of other nationals into Nigeria," Kimebi Imomotimi Ebienfa, a spokesperson for Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told AP.
Lawyers representing one of the deportees from The Gambia said their client and others had U.S. orders that prohibited their return to their countries of origin over fears of torture. Human rights groups and immigration lawyers have criticized the U.S. program that transfers noncitizen migrants to third countries, arguing that asylum seekers and other vulnerable people may not be properly screened before removal and that sending people to states with poor human rights records poses serious risks.
The Ghana removals are part of a broader pattern in which the United States has sought to send some migrants to third countries. African states such as Eswatini, Rwanda and South Sudan have received deportees from the United States, and Uganda has agreed to a deal to take certain migrants though it has not yet received any. In Latin America, hundreds of Venezuelans were sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador, and migrants from Afghanistan, Russia, Iran, China and other countries have been transferred to Costa Rica and Panama. Paraguay signed a third-country agreement with Washington last month. Mexico has not signed such an agreement but has accepted deportees from countries across the Western Hemisphere.
Immigration law scholars say some governments may accept deported migrants as a diplomatic concession aimed at cultivating goodwill with U.S. policymakers on issues such as trade, migration and aid. Critics note that many of the countries that have agreed to such arrangements have poor human rights records and have targeted government critics in the past, raising concerns about the safety of returned migrants.
"Sending migrants to countries despite legal orders prohibiting such returns is a clear violation of the duties both countries have" to protect people at risk, said Maureen A. Sweeney, an immigration lawyer and professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law. She described the removals as part of a pattern of indifference to legal obligations and the human consequences of an expansive deportation campaign.
The lawsuit filed in the United States seeks to block such deportations and to obtain information about the decision-making and screening processes used by U.S. authorities. U.S. and Ghanaian officials have not provided a full accounting of how the individuals were selected, vetted or transported. The conflicting statements from Ghanaian officials, lawyers for the deportees and Nigerian authorities underscore unresolved legal and diplomatic questions that are likely to continue as similar removals proceed.