A United States federal judge has raised serious concerns over the Trump administration’s decision to deport Nigerian and Gambian migrants to Ghana, describing the move as an apparent attempt to circumvent U.S. immigration laws.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, sitting in Washington D.C., convened an emergency hearing after lawyers representing some of the deportees argued that their clients expected to be returned to their home countries — Nigeria and Gambia — where they feared torture or persecution.
Chutkan subsequently ordered the Trump administration to submit a report by 9 p.m. on Saturday, explaining measures being taken to stop Ghana from transferring the migrants to their respective home countries.
According to her, the arrangement appeared to have been designed by U.S. officials “to make an end run” around legal requirements that bar the government from sending migrants back to situations of danger.
“These are not speculative concerns,” Chutkan said, stressing the gravity of the situation. “The concerns are real enough that the United States government agrees they shouldn’t be sent back to their home country.”
President John Dramani Mahama confirmed earlier this week that Ghana had reached an agreement with the U.S. to host some West African deportees. He revealed that 14 people had already arrived in Ghana under the arrangement.
The controversial deportations form part of President Donald Trump’s strategy of relocating migrants to “third countries” to expedite removals and pressure undocumented immigrants to leave the U.S.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed on Friday on behalf of five of the migrants claims they were taken from a Louisiana detention facility, shackled, and flown on a U.S. military aircraft without being told their destination. The complaint further alleges that some were restrained in straitjackets for 16 hours.
According to the suit, the five had U.S. legal protections preventing deportation to their home countries. One of them, a bisexual man, has already been sent to Gambia and is reportedly in hiding. The others are being held in an open-air facility managed by the Ghanaian military, described as having squalid conditions.
In response, the U.S. Department of Justice said it no longer had custody of the migrants, argued that the court lacked authority in matters of diplomacy, and cited a Supreme Court ruling permitting deportations to third countries.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, however, rejected claims that straitjackets were used during the flight. She declined to address the allegations of immigration law circumvention.
The migrants are being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
In Ghana, the development has triggered criticism. Opposition lawmakers on Friday demanded that the agreement with Washington be suspended, insisting that Parliament should have approved it before implementation.
The deal, they warned, “risks our country being perceived as aligning itself with the U.S. government’s current immigration enforcement regime, one which has been criticized as harsh and discriminatory.”
