America expels fresh batch of migrants from West Africa back to Ghana

A fresh group of West Africans has been deported to Ghana by the United States, with at least one individual possessing deportation protections, according to a lawyer involved in the case who spoke to AFP on Saturday.

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This development is part of a broader immigration crackdown initiated by US President Donald Trump, which includes deporting individuals who would have been allowed to stay in the United States under previous administrations.

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Trump has also pursued "third country" agreements, enabling the United States to send people to countries where they have no connections, a policy that has been in effect since last year, with Ghana taking in West Africans temporarily before sending them to their home countries.

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Ghana has accepted people whom US immigration judges have determined would face persecution in their countries of origin, and has also previously sent deportees to neighbouring Togo without providing them with documents.

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The exact number of deportees in the latest group is unknown, but Meredyth Yoon, a US-based lawyer associated with one of the deportation cases, confirmed that they arrived on Thursday.

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Ghanaian immigration services have not responded to an AFP request for comment, while Yoon's client, a Guinean man, had "withholding of removal", a legal protection that is weaker than asylum but has historically taken precedence over deportation orders.

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This protection has allowed individuals to live and work in the United States in the past, but the Trump administration has argued that it is only prohibited from sending people with such protections to their home countries, not to a third country.

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Ghana, not being bound by US immigration law, has previously forwarded people with US protections to their countries of origin, including a bisexual Gambian man who was forced into hiding due to his country's criminalisation of same-sex relations, as stated in US court documents.

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According to Yoon, there are concerns that the new deportees "could all be deported back to their countries as soon as tomorrow", highlighting the uncertainty and risk faced by these individuals.

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The recent flight follows the arrival of at least 42 people in Ghana last year, according to a previous tally by a Ghanaian rights group, although the actual number has not been made public by Washington and Accra.

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Previous deportees were detained in secret at a military base outside Accra, guarded by armed personnel, and some were dumped in Togo, where they remain without documents to this day.

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Trump's 2024 US presidential election campaign promises included launching "the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America", and he has since slashed the country's asylum and refugee programmes, in addition to pushing for third-country deportations.