{"id":94096,"date":"2025-09-14T05:08:43","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T05:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=94096"},"modified":"2025-09-14T05:08:43","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T05:08:43","slug":"us-judge-questions-deportation-of-west-african-migrants-to-ghana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=94096","title":{"rendered":"US judge questions deportation of West African migrants to Ghana"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>2 Minute, 33 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>
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A U.S. judge on Saturday said it appeared that President Donald Trump\u2019s administration intentionally circumvented immigration laws this week when it deported Nigerian and Gambian migrants to Ghana.<\/p>\n

Judge Tanya Chutkan, based in Washington, D.C., scheduled an emergency hearing after lawyers representing some of the migrants said their clients expected they could be moved to their home countries, where they fear torture or persecution. Chutkan later ordered the Trump administration to file a report by 9 p.m. EDT explaining how it was trying to stop Ghana from sending the migrants to Nigeria or Gambia.<\/p>\n

The deportations are part of Trump\u2019s strategy to send migrants to \u201cthird countries\u201d to speed their removal and pressure migrants in the U.S. illegally to leave. Ghana\u2019s President John Dramani Mahama said this week that his nation struck an agreement with the U.S. to accept West African deportees and had already received 14 people.<\/p>\n

Chutkan said it appeared the Trump administration crafted the deal as a way \u201cto make an end run\u201d around U.S. legal requirements that it refrain from sending migrants to danger in their home countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are not speculative concerns,\u201c said Chutkan, an appointee of former President Barack Obama. \u201cThe concerns are real enough that the United States government agrees they shouldn\u2019t be sent back to their home country.\u201d<\/p>\n

A lawsuit filed Friday on behalf of five of the migrants said they were taken from a Louisiana immigration detention center, shackled and put on a U.S. military plane without being told their destination. Several migrants on the flight were placed in straitjackets for 16 hours, the complaint said.<\/p>\n

The five plaintiffs had U.S. legal protections against deportation to their home countries, the lawsuit said. One of the migrants, a bisexual man, has already been sent to Gambia and was in hiding, it said.<\/p>\n

The other four have been held in squalid conditions in an open-air detention facility operated by the Ghanaian military, it said. In a court filing, the U.S. Department of Justice said it no longer had custody of the migrants, that the court lacked authority to intervene in diplomatic actions and that a Supreme Court decision in June allowed the government to send migrants to nations other than their country of citizenship. U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that detainees on the flight were not made to wear straitjackets.<\/p>\n

She did not comment on the allegations of circumventing immigration law.<\/p>\n

Plaintiffs are represented by two advocacy groups, the American Civil Liberties Union and Asian Americans Advancing Justice.<\/p>\n

The deportations have sparked criticism in Ghana.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Friday, opposition lawmakers called for the agreement to be suspended, saying it should have been approved by Ghana\u2019s National Assembly.<\/p>\n

The deal \u201crisks our country being perceived as aligning itself with the U.S. government\u2019s current immigration enforcement regime, one which has been criticized as harsh and discriminatory,\u201c the statement said.<\/p>\n

A Ghana government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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