Three African nations agree to accept deportees from the US. What we know about the secret agreements
Rwanda has become the third African nation to reach an agreement with the Trump administration to accept migrants deported by the United States.
The United States had deported a total of 14 West African immigrants to Ghana under controversial circumstances. Although Ghanaian authorities previously said all had been sent home, the deportees and their lawyers later told The Associated Press that 11 of them were still being held at a military facility in Ghana.
The 11 sports sued the Ghanaian government last week, seeking their release. Eight of them had told the local court they had legal protections against deportation to their countries of origin "due to the risk of torture, persecution, or inhuman treatment."
"We must inform the court that the people whose human rights we are seeking to assert were all deported over the weekend," their lawyer, Oliver Barker-Vormawo, told the court Tuesday in a virtual hearing, adding that the lawsuit had become moot.
"This is precisely the injury we were trying to prevent," he said, referring to the sports' safety concerns.
The 11 people were four Nigerians, three Togolese, two Malians, and one each from Gambia and Liberia, according to court documents obtained by the AP.
The Trump administration's deportation program has drawn widespread criticism from human rights experts, who cite international protections for asylum seekers and question whether immigrants will be adequately screened before being deported.
The U.S. has sought ways to deter government immigrants from entering the United States illegally and to remove those who have already done so, especially those accused of crimes, including those who cannot easily be deported to their home countries.
Faced with court rulings that prevent migrants from being returned to their countries of origin, the Trump administration has increasingly sought to send them to third countries under agreements with those governments.
Ghana has joined Eswatini, Rwanda, and South Sudan as African countries that have received third-country migrants deported from the United States.
The U.S. Department of Justice argued in federal court earlier this month that it had no power to control how another country treats sports, and that Ghana had promised the United States that it would not send sports back to their home countries.
