Lawsuit says U.S. deported migrants to Ghana to sidestep restrictions

A new lawsuit against the Trump administration alleges that five migrants were unlawfully deported to Ghana, with four enduring the 16-hour flight in “straitjackets,” to circumvent restrictions against sending them back to their home countries.

It’s the latest legal challenge to one of the Trump administration’s most contested enforcement actions. The lawsuit, filed Friday by the civil rights advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice, alleges that judges had granted fear-based immigration relief to the five plaintiffs, ruling that they faced persecution or torture if they returned to their home countries of Nigeria and Gambia. But during their deportation flight, the complaint said, the plaintiffs were told by an ICE officer that they would still be transferred to their home countries after landing in Ghana.

Noah Baron, assistant director of litigation at AAAJ, told The Washington Post that one plaintiff has already been sent on to Gambia and that the other four remain in Ghana under “imminent threat of deportation at a time unknown.”

“It reflects a very concerning pattern by the administration of removing people from the United States to countries that they had protection against returning to,” Baron said, “and in which they — the administration — knows, or reasonably should know, that they will be in grave danger.”