Lawyers say 4 of 14 West Africans deported by US still in Ghana, contradicting official

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) – Lawyers for four of 14 West African men deported by the U.S. to Ghana said Monday the men remained in that third country and had not been returned to their homes, contradicting an earlier statement by a Ghana official who said they have all been.

The lawyers, in a court filing, said the men’s situation remained precarious but they had not been sent to their home countries, where they argue some could face persecution or torture.

The confusion surrounding the case reflected the dizzying pace at which the Trump administration has moved ahead with its immigration priorities, which lawyers say has come at the cost of immigrants’ legal rights and sometimes puts their safety at risk.

News of the West Africans’ deportation to Ghana emerged last week, sparking a lawsuit by U.S. lawyers. They argue the move was an attempt by U.S. authorities to evade their own immigration laws that prevent some of the men from being returned to countries where their well-being could be at risk.

On Monday, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, Ghana’s minister for government communications, told The Associated Press that all 14 – 13 Nigerians and one Gambian – “have since left for their home countries,” without saying when they were returned.

But in a court filing later Monday, lawyers for four of the men said they had last communicated with them Monday evening and they were still at the camp where they were being held in Ghana. Another plaintiff they represent had been sent to his country of origin before the lawsuit was filed.

“Plaintiffs believe they still face imminent removal for the reasons set forth in Plaintiffs’ prior filings and (incorrect) statements earlier today from Ghanaian officials that Plaintiffs have already been removed to their countries of origin,” the filing read.

It was not immediately possible to reconcile the two versions. Officials in Ghana could not immediately be reached for clarity.

Lawyers have said they’re concerned that the Trump administration is deporting people and then trying to distance itself from the repercussions. The case has drawn parallels to that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the administration mistakenly deported to El Salvador despite a court order prohibiting it, then argued it couldn’t get him back.

The Trump administration, faced with people in immigration proceedings who for legal and procedural reasons cannot be sent back to their home countries, has increasingly been trying to send them to third countries with which the administration has created agreements to take deportees.

Lawyers representing five of the West African men filed a lawsuit last Friday arguing that the men, who’d been sent to Ghana along with another nine people, had legal protections preventing them from being sent home over concerns they’d be tortured or persecuted. The complaint, filed by lawyers for Asian Americans Advancing Justice, said the men had been granted fear-based relief from being sent to their countries and asked the judge to immediately halt their deportations.

A U.S. federal judge Saturday asked the U.S. government to detail what it was doing to ensure Ghana would not send the immigrants elsewhere in violation of domestic U.S. court orders. The administration’s agreements with so-called third countries like Ghana are part of a sweeping immigration crackdown seeking to deport millions of people from the United States.

A Department of Justice lawyer argued that the judge hearing the case had no power to control how another country treats deportees. The lawyer noted the U.S. Supreme Court this summer ruled that the administration could continue sending immigrants to countries they are not from, even if they hadn’t had a chance to raise fears of torture.

Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union who is part of a legal group representing the five men in the lawsuit, said Monday that the whole situation “reeks of a scam.”

“That the United States knew these individuals were headed for grave danger despite an immigration judge order, and still refused to take any action is outrageous. It seems evident that the United States has concocted a scheme to use third countries to circumvent what the United States cannot do directly,” said Gelernt.

The lawsuit filed on behalf of some of the migrants said they were held in “straitjackets” for 16 hours on a flight to Ghana and detained for days in “squalid conditions” after they arrived there.

The opposition and activists in Ghana have criticized the decision to accept the third-country deportees. Opposition lawmakers said it raises “serious constitutional, sovereignty and foreign policy concerns which cannot be overlooked.”

At a press briefing in the capital of Accra, Ghana’s Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa pushed back on criticism that the decision was an endorsement of U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Ablakwa said Ghana did not receive any financial compensation from the U.S. over the deportation.

“We just could not continue to take the suffering of our fellow West Africans,” the minister said of the rationale behind the government’s decision. “For now, the strict understanding that we have with the Americans is that we are only going to take West Africans,” he added.

Nigeria’s government said it was not briefed about its nationals being sent to Ghana and that previously it had received Nigerians deported directly from the U.S.

“We have not rejected Nigerians deported to Nigeria. What we have only rejected is deportation of other nationals into Nigeria,” Kimebi Imomotimi Ebienfa, a spokesperson for Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the AP.

The authorities in Gambia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

None of the 14 deportees were originally from Ghana and the five West Africans who filed the lawsuit did not have ties with the country or designate it as a potential country of removal, according to the complaint.

Lawyers and activists have said the Trump administration appears to be making such deportation requests to the nations most affected by his policies on trade, migration and aid.

Ghana joined Eswatini, Rwanda and South Sudan as African countries that have received migrants from third countries who were deported from the U.S., an approach whose legality has been questioned by lawyers and human rights organizations.

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Santana reported from Washington.