Lawyers for 11 West African migrants sent by the United States to Ghana this month have filed a complaint against the Ghanaian authorities, saying they are being unlawfully detained, held in a secret location against their will and deprived of their rights.
Fourteen people were taken from their cells in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in the middle of the night on Sept. 5 and put on a military cargo plane to Ghana, with some claiming they were placed in straitjackets, according to legal filings. Three of the migrants have since been sent back to their home countries, and 11 remain in Ghana.
Ghana’s foreign minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has said that the West African country took the migrants in on humanitarian grounds, in a spirit of pan-African solidarity.
But the court filing says that they were forced to go to Ghana “under the instruction or connivance of foreign and local actors” — meaning the United States. It also says they are being guarded by military personnel without having been formally charged and without access to local lawyers.
While defending the deportations this month, Justice Department lawyers did not dispute that Ghana sending the migrants to their home countries would violate their court-ordered protections. The lawyers instead argued that once a migrant had been removed from the United States and was in foreign custody, the issue was out of their hands.
“The United States is not saying that this is OK,” Elianis N. Pérez, a Justice Department lawyer, said during a hearing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “What the United States is saying is that the United States does not have the power to tell Ghana what to do.”
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The post West Africans Deported by the U.S. Sue Ghana for Rights Violations appeared first on New York Times.
