Lawyers have filed a lawsuit against Ghana at West Africa's top human rights court on behalf of deportees sent there under the United States' third-country deportation policies, the legal team announced on Tuesday. The lawsuit, lodged on Monday at the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice in Abuja, Nigeria, alleges that Ghana is violating domestic and regional law by “facilitating removals to unsafe countries,” according to a statement from the legal coalition.
Background of the Deportation Policy
As part of a sweeping crackdown on immigration, US President Donald Trump has expanded the categories of people targeted for deportation, including those with legal protections. In cases where Washington is barred from sending people home—after US judges found they likely face torture or persecution, for example—it has sent deportees to “third countries” such as Ghana. Ghana has then sent them home or, as AFP has reported, dumped them in neighboring Togo without documents.
“No person should be returned to a place where they face persecution, torture or serious threats to their dignity and safety,” said Oliver Barker-Vormawor, senior partner at Ghanaian law firm Merton & Everett LLP. The firm, along with Cornell Law School Transnational Disputes Clinic in the United States and the Global Strategic Litigation Council, a coalition of NGOs, filed the lawsuit.
Details of the Lawsuit
The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice is the top judicial body for the Economic Community of West African States, a regional bloc of 12 countries. At least 60 people have been deported to Ghana since September, according to the lawyers, with 27 represented in the lawsuit. Those in the ECOWAS lawsuit “had sought, and the majority had obtained asylum or other legal protections in the United States,” the legal coalition said.
Under the Trump administration, Washington is arguing that the law only prevents the United States from sending such people directly to their home countries. None of the 27 deportees in the lawsuit remain in Ghana, the lawyers said. “Many now remain in hiding in their home countries or have fled to third countries where they wait in limbo.”
Ghana's Role and Visa Reversal
Beyond saying that it would only take West Africans, Accra has been mum on the terms of the agreement. But shortly after it came into effect, the United States reversed visa curbs it had placed on Ghana. A similar lawsuit was filed earlier in June at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to halt US deportations to Equatorial Guinea, which has also served as a way station for African deportees.
