A group of 11 West Africans, including Nigerians, have dragged the Ghanaian government and the Trump administration to court, accusing them of unlawful detention after being deported from the United States.
Their lawyer, Oliver-Barker Vormawor, argued that the deportees had broken no Ghanaian law and should never have been held in a military camp.
He insisted that the Ghanaian government must produce them before a judge and explain why they were being detained against their will.
The Ghanaian authorities have yet to issue an official response.
However, the case has ignited a heated debate over the legality of deportation agreements between Washington and African governments.
President John Mahama’s government had earlier revealed plans to accept another 40 deportees under a deal with the U.S., but opposition lawmakers strongly opposed the move.
They demanded that the agreement be suspended until it received parliamentary approval, as required by Ghanaian law.
Just last week, President Mahama confirmed that 14 West Africans had been deported under the arrangement. He claimed that all had been repatriated to their respective countries.
Yet, Ghana’s Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa contradicted him, stating only “most of them” had been returned. Vormawor’s court application disputes both versions, insisting that 11 remain in detention on Ghanaian soil.
Court filings reveal that the detainees were first held in a U.S. facility before being shackled and flown to Ghana aboard a military cargo plane.
The forced removals are seen as part of President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda, which has prioritized record-breaking deportations since he assumed office in January.
Defending the government’s role, Ghana’s foreign minister told Reuters the decision to admit the deportees was based on humanitarian grounds and pan-African solidarity.
He stressed that it should not be interpreted as support for Trump’s controversial immigration policies.
Meanwhile, in addition to the Ghana lawsuit, five of the deportees three Nigerians and two Gambians have filed a separate case against the U.S. government.
They argued that they had been protected by a court order in America and should not have been placed on deportation flights at all.
The unfolding legal battle highlights the tension between U.S. deportation policies and the sovereignty of African nations.
It also raises pressing human rights questions about the treatment of deportees, who often face double jeopardy rejected by the U.S. and detained without charge upon return to Africa.
As the cases move forward, the fate of the 11 deportees in Ghana remains uncertain, but their challenge has already drawn international attention to what critics describe as Trump-era excesses in immigration enforcement.
