Ghana faces ECOWAS court case over deportees sent on from US

Summary

An international coalition of human rights lawyers and advocates has filed a case against Ghana, accusing it of sending deportees from the United States back to the countries they had fled, in violation of their rights. The case is the latest legal challenge over an African country’s agreement with the Trump administration to accept deportees who are not its own citizens. The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday before the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States. The coalition, which includes the Global Strategic Litigation Council, said Ghana agreed to receive deportees from the US, hold them and arrange their onward removal, even though most of them had received protection orders from US judges against being sent back to their home countries. The case represents 27 people out of at least 60 whom the US has deported to Ghana since September 2025 under an agreement between the two governments, according to the coalition’s statement. It said most of the 27 were flown from Ghana to their home countries within hours or days of arrival, despite telling Ghanaian authorities about their US protections. Some of those involved said they were shackled during the flight from the US. After reaching Ghana, they said they were kept under armed guard in military camps, hotels and airport holding cells, often in poor conditions. Ghana is one of at least nine African countries to have entered into third-country deportation deals with the US. Advocates say the Trump administration has, under often secret agreements, deported thousands of people to nearly two dozen countries that are not their own, while immigration lawyers argue that such transfers are used to indirectly send asylum seekers back to their home countries.