ACCRA (Reuters) – Ghana has agreed to accept West African nationals deported from the United States and 14 have already arrived in the country, President John Dramani Mahama told reporters late Wednesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump has taken a hardline approach toward immigration, aiming to deport millions of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally and seeking to ramp up removals to third countries.
A group of 14 deportees including Nigerians and one Gambian have already arrived in Ghana, and the government facilitated their return to their home countries, Mahama said at a press conference.
Mahama did not specify a cap on how many deportees Ghana would accept. He justified the decision by saying West Africans “don’t need a visa anyway” to come to Ghana.
“We were approached by the U.S. to accept third-party nationals who were being removed from the U.S., and we agreed with them that West African nationals were acceptable because all our fellow West Africans don’t need a visa to come to our country,” he said.
The Trump administration has approached a number of African governments about accepting deportees as part of its campaign to deter immigration through high-profile deportations to so-called “third countries.” In some cases migrants have voiced concerns for their safety.
In July the U.S. deported five individuals to Eswatini and eight others to South Sudan.
Rwanda received seven migrants deported from the United States in August, weeks after the two countries reached an agreement for the transfer of up to 250 people.
Trump welcomed five West African presidents to the White House on July 9, and sources later told Reuters that one of the objectives of that meeting was to press the leaders to take in deportees from other countries.
Mahama did not participate in that meeting.
(Reporting by Emmanuel Bruce; Writing by Robbie Corey-Boulet; Additional reporting by Anait Miridzhanian; Editing by Nia Williams and Kim Coghill)
