Eleven West Africans transferred from the United States to Ghana under an agreement with the Trump administration have been deported again, their lawyer said on Tuesday.
Lawyer Oliver Barker-Vormawor told Reuters after a court hearing that six of the deportees were now in neighbouring Togo, while the whereabouts of the other five remained unknown. The group included four Nigerians, three Togolese, two Malians, one Liberian and one Gambian.
Ghana’s government has not commented on the deportations. President John Dramani Mahama said earlier this month that his government had agreed to take in West Africans deported from the U.S. under Trump’s immigration crackdown.
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Last week Barker-Vormawor filed a lawsuit seeking to block the deportations, arguing that at least eight of the 11 had been granted protection by U.S. immigration judges. But he told the court on Tuesday the case had become “moot” after the group was sent out of Ghana over the weekend.
“This is precisely the injury we were trying to prevent,” he said. He later added that information suggested another 14 deportees had recently arrived in Ghana, though he had not confirmed this.
Mahama’s government has previously said the arrangement did not amount to an endorsement of U.S. immigration policy and that Ghana received no benefits in return.
