Lawyers have moved to the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice seeking legal action against Ghana over its role in receiving deportees from the United States under Washington’s third-country deportation policy, arguing that the practice exposes vulnerable migrants to serious human rights violations.
The case, filed on Monday before the regional court in Abuja, was brought by Ghanaian law firm Merton & Everett LLP, the Cornell Law School Transnational Disputes Clinic in the United States, and the Global Strategic Litigation Council, a coalition of non-governmental organisations.
The legal team says the suit represents 27 deportees who were sent to Ghana after the United States was unable to return them directly to their countries of origin.
According to the lawyers, the affected individuals had either sought or been granted asylum or other legal protections in the United States.
However, under an expanded immigration enforcement policy introduced by President Donald Trump, Washington has increasingly relied on third countries to remove migrants who cannot legally be deported directly to their home nations because they could face torture, persecution or other serious risks.
The legal coalition alleges that Ghana breached both domestic and regional legal obligations by accepting and facilitating the onward removal of deportees to countries where their safety could not be guaranteed.
In a statement, the group argued that Ghana was violating the law by facilitating removals to unsafe countries.
Senior partner at Merton & Everett LLP, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, maintained that the rights of deportees must be protected regardless of immigration status.
“No person should be returned to a place where they face persecution, torture or serious threats to their dignity and safety,” he said.
The lawyers said at least 60 people have been deported to Ghana since September, with 27 of them included in the latest court action.
They further claimed that although Ghana had indicated it would only receive West African nationals, the government has not publicly disclosed the details of its agreement with the United States.
According to the legal team, none of the 27 applicants remains in Ghana.
“Many now remain in hiding in their home countries or have fled to third countries where they wait in limbo,” the coalition said.
The lawsuit comes weeks after another legal challenge was filed before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights seeking to halt similar deportations to Equatorial Guinea, another country that has reportedly received migrants under the United States’ third-country deportation arrangements.
