On a humid September morning, the sprawling Bundase military camp on the outskirts of Accra, Ghana, became the unlikely epicenter of a growing international controversy. Fourteen migrants, none of them Ghanaian citizens, had just landed on a U.S. military cargo plane—deported not to their home countries, but to Ghana, a nation that had agreed to accept them on what officials described as humanitarian grounds. The move has since ignited a firestorm of debate, legal challenges, and conflicting official accounts, with human rights groups and lawyers raising the alarm over the treatment and fate of these individuals.
According to the Associated Press, the group included thirteen Nigerians and one Gambian, all of whom were forcibly removed from the United States on September 5 and 6, 2025. The migrants later described being awoken in the dead of night, handcuffed, and strapped into straitjackets for the entire 16-hour journey to Ghana. “They said nothing. Nobody said anything about why they are deporting me or where they were sending me,” one Togolese deportee told AP, his voice tinged with disbelief as he recounted the ordeal from detention.
Upon arrival, the deportees were detained at the Bundase camp under what they called “terrible” and “squalid” conditions. Reports from the migrants and their lawyers detailed a grim reality: some had developed malaria from drinking contaminated water and eating poor-quality food, while others languished with little idea of what would happen next. “Some of us are getting sick and have malaria due to bad water and bad food,” a Nigerian deportee, who had lived in the U.S. for twelve years, told AP.
The U.S. government’s decision to deport these men to Ghana—none of whom had any previous ties to the country—was, according to court documents, made with little warning. The migrants were not told their destination until hours into the flight. For some, the journey to Ghana marked the end of an already harrowing saga: several had spent between seven months and a year in U.S. detention, and some had even won their immigration cases, only to be deported regardless. Lawyers representing five of the men quickly filed a lawsuit, arguing that their clients had legal protections preventing deportation due to credible fears of torture or persecution if returned to their home countries.
“That the United States knew these individuals were going to be sent to grave danger despite an immigration judge order, and still refused to take any action is outrageous. It seems evident that the United States has concocted a scheme to use third countries to circumvent what the United States cannot do directly,” Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, told CNN.
Despite these legal protections—and amidst ongoing litigation in the U.S.—the Trump administration pressed ahead with the deportations. The rationale, according to Ghana’s Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, was rooted in pan-African solidarity. “We just could not continue to take the suffering of our fellow West Africans,” Ablakwa said at a press briefing, emphasizing that Ghana’s acceptance was “purely on humanitarian principle.” He added, “For now, the strict understanding that we have with the Americans is that we are only going to take West Africans.” Ablakwa also stressed that Ghana did not receive any financial compensation from the U.S. for taking in the deportees, pushing back against critics who accused the government of endorsing U.S. immigration policy for personal gain.
The Ghanaian government’s official stance, as articulated by Minister for Government Communications Felix Kwakye Ofosu, was that all fourteen deportees “have since left for their home countries.” But this assertion was swiftly and forcefully contradicted by the deportees themselves and their legal representatives. As of September 17, at least eleven of the original fourteen remained detained in Ghana, according to interviews conducted by AP. The group reportedly included four Nigerians, three Togolese, two Malians, one Gambian, and one Liberian. Only three were believed to have been repatriated—one to Gambia and two to Nigeria. The rest, their lawyers said, continued to languish in Bundase camp, fearful for their safety and uncertain of their fate.
This disconnect between government statements and on-the-ground reality has only deepened the controversy. Meredyth Yoon, litigation director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice and a lawyer for four of the deportees, told AP, “They are afraid that the reason the Ghanaian government is insisting that they are not in the country is because they are afraid something will happen to them.”
The U.S. administration’s use of third-country agreements to facilitate deportations has come under increasing scrutiny. Ghana joins a small group of African nations—including Eswatini, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Uganda—that have agreed to accept migrants deported from the U.S., often with little transparency and under questionable legal frameworks. Latin American countries, too, have been drawn into similar arrangements, with hundreds of Venezuelans reportedly sent to El Salvador and other migrants dispatched to Costa Rica and Panama. Critics say these deals allow the U.S. to sidestep its own legal obligations to asylum seekers and those with credible fears of persecution.
Human rights groups and legal experts have been vocal in their condemnation. “This is part of a pattern by the U.S. government of extreme indifference…to the government’s obligations and to the human consequences of its mass deportation campaign,” Maureen A. Sweeney, an immigration lawyer and professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, told the Associated Press. The United Nations and other international organizations have long warned against the practice of sending migrants to countries where they may face torture, persecution, or inhumane treatment—a warning echoed in the current dispute.
Domestic critics in Ghana have not remained silent. Opposition lawmakers and activists have raised “serious constitutional, sovereignty and foreign policy concerns which cannot be overlooked,” according to CNN. They argue that the government’s willingness to accept third-country deportees undermines national sovereignty and sets a dangerous precedent, particularly given Ghana’s own challenges with migration and human rights.
The Nigerian government, too, expressed surprise and frustration at the arrangement. “We have not rejected Nigerians deported to Nigeria. What we have only rejected is deportation of other nationals into Nigeria,” Kimiebi Imomotimi Ebienfa, a spokesperson for Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told AP, underscoring the lack of communication and coordination surrounding the deportations.
The legal battle continues to unfold, with U.S. judges and lawyers wrestling over jurisdiction and responsibility. A Department of Justice lawyer argued that American courts had no power to control what happened to the migrants once they landed in Ghana. Meanwhile, a federal judge pressed the U.S. government to clarify what steps, if any, were being taken to ensure Ghana would not deport the men elsewhere in violation of court orders.
For the migrants still detained in Ghana, the future remains perilously uncertain. As the international community watches, the case has become a flashpoint in the ongoing debate over immigration, human rights, and the responsibilities of nations in a world where borders are increasingly both barriers and battlegrounds. The fate of these fourteen men—and the broader implications of their forced journey—hang in the balance, a stark reminder of the human cost behind the politics of deportation.
