A federal judge in Washington excoriated the Trump administration on Monday for what she described as its disregard of court-ordered protections for migrants it had deported to Ghana, even as she declined to rule on their behalf, citing a lack of jurisdiction.
The judge called out a “cavalier acceptance” that they may face torture and persecution in their home countries, as several are set for deportation again. One of the migrants had said in a sworn statement that he had been beaten and tortured by police officers and soldiers in his home county of Nigeria, and had been told that if they ever saw him again, they would kill him.
But Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington ruled late Monday that she could not prevent those migrants from being sent to their home countries because they had already been sent to Ghana — and thus out of her legal purview.
The decision was a victory for the Trump administration and the most recent sign of how recent Supreme Court rulings have paved the way for elements of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
The five plaintiffs in the case, identified by their initials for fear of persecution in their home counties, are citizens of Nigeria and Gambia. One man, known in the filing as K.S., has already been deported by Ghana to Gambia, where he is in hiding. K.S. is bisexual, and Gambia criminalizes relationships between men with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
The other four plaintiffs were still in Ghana as of early Tuesday, and have been told by officials there that their deportations were imminent.
“The court does not reach this conclusion lightly,” Judge Chutkan wrote in her 16-page ruling. But, she added, despite being “alarmed and dismayed,” her “hands are tied.”
The ruling brought an end to a frantic legal battle that began on Friday and lasted through the weekend.
Lawyers representing the five migrants had sued in federal court, accusing the Trump administration of using an agreement with Ghana to accept deported migrants to “do their dirty work” and send them onward to their home countries, despite orders from immigration judges who had determined that those migrants were more likely than not to face persecution, torture or death if returned.
Judge Chutkan appeared to largely agree with that assessment, saying in an emergency hearing on Saturday that “I have not been shy about saying that I think this is a very suspicious scheme.” But, she added, the Supreme Court had blocked a lower court decision in a similar case earlier this year, and told the plaintiffs’ lawyers that “there’s no point in getting decisions from me that are immediately going to be stayed.”
The Trump administration has brokered deals with several African nations, Rwanda, Uganda, Eswatini and — most recently — Ghana, to accept deported migrants, many of whom have no connection to those countries. Administration officials, under pressure from President Trump to carry out his promised mass deportation operation, have moved swiftly on these so-called third-country deportations.
The Supreme Court has broadly allowed the government to deport migrants to countries other than their own, and had paused a federal judge’s ruling that said the migrants must first be given a chance to show that they would be at risk of torture.
Justice Department lawyers conceded in arguments that it appeared Ghana had violated the migrants’ legal protections, but argued that the U.S. government was powerless to tell Ghana what it can do with migrants once immigration authorities had delivered them into Ghanaian custody — an argument the Trump administration had previously used in the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia.
“The United States is not saying that this is OK,” Elianis N. Pérez, a Justice Department lawyer, said during the hearing. “What the United States is saying is that the United States does not have the power to tell Ghana what to do.”
In sworn statements submitted to the court, the migrants said that they were told by U.S. and Ghanaian officials that they would all be sent to their home countries after arriving in Ghana — despite informing them of their protective orders.
The migrants also described abysmal conditions both during their initial deportations from the United States, and at a remote detention facility known as Dema Camp, at an undisclosed location in Ghana.
On Sept. 5, the migrants were awakened late at night, shackled and put on a military cargo plane without being allowed to notify family or legal counsel, and, in at least one case, without identification documents. They claim that some of them were placed in straitjackets for up to 16 hours during the flight, and one of the plaintiffs in the case, D.A., claimed that he now has difficulty walking because his straitjacket was secured so tightly.
D.A., a citizen of Nigeria, was a member of the People’s Democratic Party, one of the main political parties in the country. In the sworn statement, D.A. said that he had been a target of violent attacks in his home country. First, he was beaten by members of a rival party, the All Progressives Congress, he said. Months later, he was tortured by the military and police officers.
“They tortured me and kept me locked in a dog cage for three days,” D.A. said, adding that after letting him go, “they told me they would kill me if they ever saw me again.”
“After this incident I had to leave Nigeria to save my life,” he said.
Chris Cameron is a Times reporter covering Washington, focusing on breaking news and the Trump administration.
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