Accra, Ghana - Another group of west Africans has been sent to Ghana by the US, including at least one with deportation protections, a lawyer involved with the case told AFP Saturday.
President Donald Trump has pursued a vast immigration crackdown, including the deportation of people who typically would have been allowed to stay in the US under previous administrations.
He has also pursued "third country" agreements that allow the US to send people to countries where they have no ties.
Ghana since last year has been taking west Africans temporarily before sending them to the countries where they hold citizenship, including people who US immigration judges found would face persecution in their places of origin.
Ghana has also previously dumped deported people in neighboring Togo, without documents.
The exact number in the latest batch of deported people was unknown, but Meredyth Yoon, a US-based lawyer associated with one of the deportation cases, said they arrived Thursday.
Ghanaian immigration services did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.
The person whose case Yoon is associated with, a Guinean man, had deportation protections, the lawyer said.
The man had "withholding of removal," a legal protection that is weaker than asylum but in the past has superseded someone's deportation order, allowing them to live and work in the US.
Trump administration defends third country deportations
The US had previously sent people it deported with similar protections to the West African nation.
The Trump administration has argued that it is only barred from sending people with withholding or other similar statuses to their home countries, and not to a third country.
Ghana is not bound by US immigration law, and has forwarded people with US protections to origin countries – including, last year, a bisexual Gambian man who had to go into hiding as his country criminalizes same-sex relations, according to US court documents.
Among the newly deported people, there are fears "they could all be deported back to their countries as soon as tomorrow," Yoon said.
The most recent flight comes after at least 42 people arrived in Ghana last year, according to a previous tally by a Ghanaian rights group.
Washington and Accra have not made the actual number public.
Previous people who were deported were held in secret at a military base outside Accra by armed guards.
Some were sent to Togo, where they live to this day without documents.
In addition to pushing third-country deportations, Trump has slashed the country's asylum and refugee programs since retaking the White House in January 2025.