Location of 19 Deported Migrants to Ghana Is Uncertain
Human rights concerns and legal difficulties have arisen because Ghana is unable to access 19 West Africans who were deported under the US third-country program.
Concerns have been raised regarding the safety and rights of 19 West African nationals who were deported from the United States to Ghana and placed in unidentified areas under armed guard, their attorney said on Thursday.
Arriving in Ghana on November 5 and initially staying at a hotel, the group has been inaccessible ever since being moved in two different movements. Part of the group was bused to an unidentified border area over the weekend, according to attorney Ana Dionne-Lanier, while her client and others were transferred “under heavy armed guard” on Wednesday.
“We don’t know where any of them are,” she added, adding that families have stopped communicating with the deportees, who are shielded from being sent back to their countries of origin because of the dangers of torture and persecution.
The disappearances are connected to a mostly covert U.S. program that, since July, has deported dozens of people to at least five African countries, including South Sudan, Rwanda, and Eswatini. Human rights experts have condemned the project, pointing to infringement of international protections for asylum-seekers and raising doubts about whether refugees are properly screened before being deported.
The initiative is a reflection of the administration’s efforts to deport migrants who are unable to return to their countries of origin because of court decisions.
According to a lawsuit filed by Ghana’s Democracy Hub rights group, the deal with Washington is unlawful since it did not require parliamentary permission and might be in violation of agreements that forbid returning to nations where people are persecuted.
Despite securing Ghana’s promise not to repatriate deportees to their home countries, the US Department of Justice informed a federal court that it had no influence over how another nation handles deportees. Amid growing legal and diplomatic problems, the fate of the 19 missing West Africans is still unknown.
