US judge confronts Trump administration over migrant deportations through Ghana

A U.S. federal judge has raised sharp concerns about the Trump administration’s handling of West African deportations, suggesting officials may have deliberately sidestepped immigration law when they transferred Nigerian and Gambian migrants to Ghana.

Judge Tanya Chutkan of Washington, D.C., convened an emergency hearing after lawyers warned their clients feared torture or persecution if returned to their home countries. 

She later ordered the administration to explain by 9 p.m. EDT how it planned to prevent Ghana from sending the migrants back to Nigeria or Gambia.

The deportations form part of President Trump’s broader push to relocate migrants to so-called “third countries” a tactic intended to hasten removals and pressure undocumented immigrants to leave. 

Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama confirmed this week that his government had agreed to receive deportees and had already taken in 14 people.

Chutkan, however, was unconvinced. She said the arrangement looked like “an end run” around legal protections barring the U.S. from sending people into harm’s way.

“These are not speculative concerns,” she said. “The concerns are real enough that the United States government agrees they shouldn’t be sent back to their home country.”

The concerns are central to a lawsuit filed Friday by advocacy groups representing five migrants. According to the complaint, detainees were shackled at a Louisiana immigration facility, placed on a U.S. military plane, and flown out without being told where they were headed. 

Some, the filing alleged, were kept in straitjackets for 16 hours.

The lawsuit argued that the plaintiffs had U.S. protections shielding them from deportation to their home countries. One plaintiff, a bisexual man, was already returned to Gambia and forced into hiding. 

The remaining four, the complaint said, were confined in grim conditions at an open-air detention camp run by the Ghanaian military.

The U.S. Department of Justice countered that it no longer had custody of the migrants and argued that courts lacked authority to interfere in diplomatic matters. Officials cited a recent Supreme Court ruling allowing removals to third countries.

 A Homeland Security spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, denied that straitjackets were used but declined to address claims of legal maneuvering.

The deportations, and Ghana’s role in them, have stirred unease in Accra. Opposition lawmakers on Friday urged suspension of the deal, warning that bypassing parliamentary approval undermined Ghana’s sovereignty.

The agreement, they said, “risks our country being perceived as aligning itself with the U.S. government’s current immigration enforcement regime, one which has been criticized as harsh and discriminatory.”

Ghanaian officials have yet to comment publicly.