Ghana claims that the decision to accept deportees does not support Trump’s policies

The foreign minister stated on Monday that Ghana’s choice to take in West Africans who have been deported from the United States is not a support of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and that the nation is not getting anything in return.

Last Monday, President John Dramani Mahama announced that Ghana had consented to accept an anonymous number of deportees after Washington requested that it accept “third-party nationals.” 14 people, including one Gambian and Nigerian, have already come, according to Mahama.

A U.S. court said on Saturday that it seemed the Trump administration’s deportations to Ghana were a willful violation of immigration regulations.

During a press conference on Monday, Ghana’s Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa stated that Accra’s decision was “grounded purely on humanitarian principle and Pan-African empathy,” adding that the deportees in question were being kept in jail in the United States and faced the possibility of being deported to dangerous nations.

“This should not be misconstrued as an endorsement of the immigration policies of the Trump administration,” he added.

The arrangement is “not transactional” while Ghana “has not received and does not seek any financial compensation or material benefit in relation to this understanding,” he stated.

Ghana will screen the deportees to make sure “hardened criminals” don’t come in, he said.

Trump plans to expedite the deportations by sending migrants to “third countries” and pressuring those who are in the country illegally to leave.

The U.S. pact should have been approved by parliament, according to opposition MPs in Ghana who demanded last week that it be suspended.

According to Ablakwa, lawmakers can review the memorandum of understanding if it is “elevated into a full-blown agreement.” On Monday, he stated that lawmakers were not required to approve it.