Judge won’t intervene in deportations of migrants to Ghana 

A federal judge said she will not intervene in the deportations of migrants to their home countries, where they may face torture and persecution, after they were first sent to Ghana by the U.S. government, saying her “hands are tied.” 

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan acknowledged orders from other judges stating that five plaintiffs in the case are more likely than not to experience torture or persecution if returned to their home countries, but noted that she lacks the jurisdiction. 

“The court does not reach this conclusion lightly. It is aware of the dire consequences Plaintiffs face if they are repatriated. And it is alarmed and dismayed by the circumstances under which these removals are being carried out, especially in light of the government’s cavalier acceptance of Plaintiffs’ ultimate transfer to countries where they face torture and persecution. But its hands are tied,” Chutkan said in her 16-page Monday night ruling.

The ruling presents a win for President Trump’s administration that has struck deals with other African countries, including Rwanda, Uganda and Eswatini, to send immigrants as part of the president’s mass deportation agenda. 

The 14 migrants, most of whom are Nigerian, will be sent to their home countries from Ghana. 

Attorneys for four of the Nigerian migrants said on Monday that their clients were still held in Ghana. 

Ghana’s officials refuted the claims of the lawyers, saying the individuals were returned to their home nations. 

“None of them are staying in this country. Nobody is being held in any camp and nobody’s right has been abused,” Ghana’s minister for government communications and presidential spokesperson Felix Kwakye Ofosu said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. 

Ofosu said the one Gambian migrant was flown home, while the other 13 individuals, all from Nigeria, were sent to their home country on a bus. 

In the lawsuit, some of the plaintiffs were sent to Ghana earlier this month and taken to an “open-air detention facility surrounded by armed military guards.” 

Chutkan admonished the administration’s actions in the case. 

“Defendants’ actions in this case appear to be taken in disregard of or despite its obligations to provide individuals present in the United States with due process and to treat even those who are subject to removal humanely. These actions also appear to be part of a pattern and widespread effort to evade the government’s legal obligations by doing indirectly what it cannot do directly,” the federal judge said.