(AFP) – Another group of west Africans has been sent to Ghana by the United States, including at least one with deportation protections, a lawyer involved with the case told AFP Saturday. US President Donald Trump has pursued a vast immigration crackdown, including the deportation of people who typically would have been allowed to stay in the United States under previous administrations. He has also pursued “third country” agreements that allow the United States to send people to countries where they have no ties.
Ghana, since last year, has been taking west Africans temporarily before sending them to their home countries, including people who US immigration judges found would face persecution in their origin nations. Ghana has also previously dumped deportees in neighbouring Togo without documents. The exact number in the latest batch of deportees was unknown, but Meredyth Yoon, a US-based lawyer associated with one of the deportation cases, said they arrived Thursday. Ghanaian immigration services did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.
The person whose case Yoon is associated with, a Guinean man, had deportation protections, the lawyer said. The man had “withholding of removal,” a legal protection that is weaker than asylum but, in the past, has superseded someone’s deportation order, allowing them to live and work in the United States.
Fears have arisen that they will be sent on. The US had previously sent deportees with similar protections to the West African nation. The Trump administration has argued that it is only barred from sending people with withholding or other similar statuses to their home countries, and not to a third country. Ghana is not bound by US immigration law, and has forwarded people with US protections to their origin countries— including, last year, a bisexual Gambian man who had to go into hiding as his country criminalizes same-sex relations, according to US court documents.
Among the new deportees, there are fears that “they could all be deported back to their countries as soon as tomorrow,” Yoon said. The most recent flight comes after at least 42 people arrived in Ghana last year, according to a previous tally by a Ghanaian rights group. Washington and Accra have not made the actual number public.
Previous deportees were held in secret at a military base outside Accra by armed guards. Some were dumped in Togo, where they live to this day without documents. Trump won the 2024 US presidential election on promises of launching “the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America.” In addition to pushing third-country deportations, he has slashed his country’s asylum and refugee programmes.
© 2024 AFP
