The United Nations human rights office has called on Ghana to halt the deportations of migrants who were recently deported from the United States and had U.S.-court-ordered protections against being returned to their home countries, where they faced the risk of torture.
While it remained unclear how Ghana would respond to the request, the move adds diplomatic pressure on Ghana to comply with long-held humanitarian standards enshrined in the Convention Against Torture, an international treaty to which the United States and Ghana are party to.
The request, made on behalf of the U.N.’s Committee Against Torture, also highlights how President Trump’s aggressive deportation effort could potentially run afoul of international law. The United States has been enlisting the help of foreign governments — including Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, South Sudan and Eswatini — to receive “third country” deportees, or people who are not their own citizens.
In a letter dated Sept. 22, the U.N. office said it had called on a “state party” to refrain from deportations while the committee considered a complaint under the torture convention. The letter was provided to The New York Times by Patrick Taurel, a member of the legal team representing a group of third-country migrants deported by the Trump administration to Ghana. Mr. Taurel said the complaint had been filed on his clients’ behalf, and identified Ghana as the state party.
Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington had considered a request to block the deportation of the migrants earlier this month. At the time, she excoriated the Trump administration for what she said appeared to be a deliberate scheme to ignore the migrants’ court-ordered protections, which were issued after immigration judges determined that they were more likely than not to face persecution, torture or death if returned to their home countries.
However, Judge Chutkan ultimately ruled that, because the migrants had already been sent out of American jurisdiction, her hands were tied.
Neither the Embassy of Ghana in Washington nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to requests for comment.
The case involves five migrants who were deported from the United States to Ghana on Sept. 5 as part of a third-country deportation deal.
But in sworn statements submitted in court, the migrants said they were told by U.S. and Ghanaian officials that they would be sent from Ghana to their home countries — even though the officials were informed of the protective orders.
Legal papers in the case identified the plaintiffs by little more than their initials and nationalities, for their protection. In a sworn statement, one, D.A., recounted that he had been beaten and tortured by police officers and soldiers in Nigeria who said that if they ever saw him again, they would kill him.
A bisexual man from Gambia, K.S., has already been deported by Ghana to Gambia, where he is in hiding. Gambia criminalizes relationships between men with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
As recently as Sept. 15, D.A. and three other migrants were being held at a remote detention facility in Ghana known as Dema Camp, whose location has not been disclosed. Their lawyers declined to say if they were still in Ghana for fear of putting them in more danger.
In their sworn statements, the migrants described abysmal conditions both during their initial deportations from the United States and at Dema Camp.
While in U.S. detention on Sept. 5, the migrants said, they 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 said that some of them were placed in straitjackets for up to 16 hours during the flight, and D.A. claimed that his straitjacket was secured so tightly that he has had difficulty walking ever since.
Third-country deportations have been the subject of a number of U.S. court challenges. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that a group of deportees held on an American military base in Djibouti could be sent on to South Sudan, overruling a lower-court judge who had found that they must first be given an opportunity to be heard about the risk of torture. Trina Realmuto, one of the lawyers representing the Djibouti deportees in a class-action lawsuit, said that the U.N. committee’s proceeding could have broader implications should it turn up evidence that undercut “diplomatic assurances” made to the United States by foreign governments that deportees would not be tortured or persecuted.
In a statement, Gianna Borroto, a member of the legal team representing the deportees in Ghana, said the move by the U.N. committee “should serve as a stark warning to other African nations considering entering into similar agreements” with the United States.
Chris Cameron is a Times reporter covering Washington, focusing on breaking news and the Trump administration.
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