Key facts
- Advocacy groups have filed a complaint against Ghana with the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice.
- The complaint is on behalf of 27 individuals deported from the U.S. to Ghana.
- Deportees claim they were removed from the U.S. to countries they had escaped, sometimes within hours of arriving in Ghana.
- The plaintiffs are seeking at least $100,000 in compensation for each deportee from Ghana.
- The lawsuit seeks to compel Ghana to disclose the terms of its deportation agreement with the Trump administration and prevent future deportations under the arrangement.
Advocacy groups have filed a complaint against Ghana with the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States on behalf of 27 individuals deported from the United States under the Trump administration. The deportees claim they had protections in the U.S. but were removed within hours or days of their arrival in Ghana to the countries they had escaped, with some left stranded in third countries.
The lawsuit, filed by the Global Strategic Litigation Council, seeks at least $100,000 in compensation for each deportee from Ghana, along with other reparations. The groups aim to discourage other ECOWAS members from entering similar deals with the Trump administration and to force Ghana to disclose the terms of its agreement and block future deportations under the arrangement. A report by Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee indicated that over $32 million had been sent directly to five countries for third-country removals, including $7.5 million to Equatorial Guinea.