14 West Africans deported from US lands in Ghana

A group of 14 West Africans deported from the US have arrived in Ghana.

The country’s president John Mahatma told journalists on Wednesday that Ghana accepted the deportees from the US because they are West African and needed no visa to be in the country.

Ghana joins Eswatini, Rwanda and South Sudan as African countries that have received migrants from third countries who were deported from the US, a controversial approach whose legality lawyers for the deportees have questioned.

“We agreed with (Washington) that West African nationals were acceptable because all our fellow West African nationals don´t need a visa to come to our country”, Mahama said.

The deportees that arrived in the country and included Nigerian and Gambian nationals who planned to return to their countries, he added.

President Donald Trump of the US in his second term, has been aggressively cracking down on immigrants he says are criminals and from countries whose nationals have overstayed their visa.

However, there have been concerns about the conditions facing some deportees sent to Africa. Lawyers and activists have also questioned the legality of the deportations and argued that Trump’s administration appears to be making such requests to the nations most affected by his policies on trade, migration and aid.

The five men deported to Eswatini in July have been held in a maximum-security prison for seven weeks without charge or explanation and with no access to legal counsel, their lawyers said last week.

Rights groups have also argued that most of the African countries that have received such deportees have one thing in common: A poor human rights record.

In July, Trump hosted five West African presidents from Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Gabon at the White House to discuss whether the countries would be open to accepting deportees from the US.

Nigeria, whose nationals comprise the bulk of deported migrants to Ghana, said at the time that African countries were under “significant pressure” to receive migrants and that it would not agree.

Ghana is the first West African country to announce it has entered into such an agreement with the US to receive deported foreign nationals.

Mahama did not say whether the 14 deportees have criminal history.

“West Africa has a protocol of free movement. Any West African is welcome in Ghana,” Mahama said.