ABUJA, Nigeria — A group of West African deportees has filed a lawsuit against Ghana at the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, accusing the country of unlawfully facilitating the United States’ “third-country” deportation policy and exposing migrants to persecution and other human rights violations.
The case was lodged on Monday before the regional court in Abuja 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 petition challenges Ghana’s role in accepting migrants deported from the United States before returning them to their countries of origin or transferring them elsewhere in West Africa.
The lawsuit comes amid an expansion of US immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump, whose administration has broadened deportation measures, including the removal of migrants to third countries when US courts have blocked direct deportations to their home states because of risks of torture or persecution.
According to the legal coalition, at least 60 people have been deported from the United States to Ghana since September under the arrangement, with 27 of them participating in the lawsuit.
Lawyers argue that many of those affected had previously secured asylum or other legal protections in the United States and should not have been transferred to countries that later removed them to places where they feared persecution.
“No person should be returned to a place where they face persecution, torture or serious threats to their dignity and safety,” said Oliver Barker-Vormawor, senior partner at Merton & Everett LLP.
The petition alleges Ghana breached both domestic law and regional human rights obligations by facilitating removals to countries where deportees faced serious risks.
The legal team further claims that some deportees were subsequently returned to their countries of origin, while others were allegedly abandoned in neighbouring Togo without travel documents.
None of the 27 applicants named in the lawsuit remains in Ghana.
According to the lawyers, many are now living in hiding in their home countries, while others have fled to third countries and remain in legal uncertainty.
The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice serves as the highest judicial institution of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a regional bloc comprising 12 member states.
Ghana has publicly stated that it would only receive deportees who are West African nationals but has released few details about its agreement with Washington. Shortly after the arrangement took effect, the United States lifted visa restrictions it had previously imposed on Ghana.
The case follows a similar legal challenge filed earlier this month before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights seeking to halt US third-country deportations to Equatorial Guinea.