In 2025, the United States intensified its use of third-country agreements to redirect migrants and asylum seekers, a practice increasingly challenged by legal scholars and human rights activists. Ghana emerged as the epicenter, receiving nationals from Nigeria, Gambia, and Sierra Leone under informal arrangements exploiting its open visa policies.
At least 14 people were flown to Ghana between March and August 2025 and put in the Dema Camp, which is a remote detention center that had never been used before by international deportees. The advocacy groups have condemned the move as a workaround measure that does not amount to a direct violation of the US asylum laws that do not allow their sending back to countries where they stand a high chance of facing persecution. The US authorities can pretend to be in compliance by returning deportees to Ghana, thereby sabotaging the purpose of the legal protection.
This change is indicative of a wider change in the Trump administration under the 2025 immigration enforcement blueprint, which prioritizes deterrence by implementing aggressive removal of undocumented persons and collaboration with foreign partners. The role played by Ghana though has some crucial legal, diplomatic and ethical consequences.
Legal and human rights challenges
Legal implications of deporting the third-country to Ghana have caused an alarm in the US judiciary. In one recent Washington hearing, Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan referred to the transfers as end-run around US laws aimed at protecting asylum seekers against harm. Although she accepted that the courts did not have much authority in overturning the executive foreign policy decisions, she sounded an alarm on the deportation of individuals to jurisdictions where they may suffer torture or secondary deportation to their countries of origin.
Such deportations are usually done without much judicial scrutiny and people are left in legal limbo. The detainees of the Dema Camp complain of humiliating conditions, absence of access to an attorney, and threat of additional translocation. Cases of poor healthcare, army-like security measures, and refusal to communicate with the representatives of the law have been reported in court submissions. According to lawyers, such practices are in contravention of not only the US constitutional principles, but the international conventions, such as the 1951 Refugee Convention and the Convention against Torture.
Legal advocacy and institutional response
Legal challenges have risen in opposition to bypassing further deportations to Ghana with civil liberties groups contending that the practice of transfers to third countries infringes on asylum laws. Other attempts have resulted in emergency injunctions, yet deportations proceed under the executive authority. These instances point to the increasingly tense relationship between the domestic law of immigration and transnational enforcement practices.
Human Rights Watch and the UNHCR have demanded that third-country deportations should be halted until there are some transparent mechanisms of review. Nevertheless, binding enforcement instruments are not present, which makes it more difficult to enforce the international norms.
Ghana’s position and regional diplomacy
The government of Ghana has been on the defensive to take in deported US nationals by justifying it as a sign of regional unity and free-border policies between Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries. The individuals, President John Dramani Mahama and spokesperson Felix Kwakye Ofosu have underlined that the individuals were taken through the legal processes and in most instances sent back to their countries of origin.
Nonetheless, even with these promises, the Ghana Parliament has created issues with regard to transparency and adherence to human rights requirements of the country. The opposition legislators have insisted on being told the content of the agreement with the US and whether there was proper legal protection of the detainees. This has been resonated in the civil society of Ghana, which has cautioned that the country will be complicit in the commissions of human rights violations in the event that due process is not observed.
The delicacy of the overlap of national sovereignty and international relations is highlighted by the balancing act of the government between regional diplomacy, and foreign pressure.
Broader geopolitical and ethical considerations
Analysts view Ghana’s role in US deportation policy as part of a wider geopolitical analysis. Analysts consider the implementation of Ghana in US deportation policy to be a larger geopolitical trend where more wealthy countries outsource their immigration enforcement to third world countries. The same arrangements have been reported in cases of Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan. When these countries give help or diplomatic favors, they take upon them the responsibility of accepting the migrants who have been kicked out of the Western countries irrespective of the nationality of the individual migrant.
This form of outsourcing would enable the US to keep immigration quotas high and it will also avoid criticism of the humanitarian effects of deportation. The opponents believe that this makes migrant life commodified and their lives breach the principles of international justice as they hold the low and middle-income countries with more than proportional duties.
Legal ambiguity and lack of oversight
These arrangements are ethically questionable because of their ambiguity in the law. Most of the agreements are not conducted in the form of treaties or publicly published protocols. This non-transparency renders the watchdogs or the people who are affected to demand accountability or legal standards. It also weakens the international system of protection of refugees which requires collaboration of the states and good faith enforcement.
According to the scholars and policymakers, these kinds of strategies undermine the international asylum framework and as a result, countries are competing to the bottom of the sea without securing protections. The Ghana case demonstrates the possibility to get around both domestic and global commitments, by using legal loopholes.
Impact on migrant communities and legal recourse
The effects are usually devastating to those who are trapped in this kind of geo-political system. Deported people report on sudden arrests, handcuffing during transportation, and the inability to contact interpreters or attorneys. After getting to Ghana, most of them are subjected to unlimited detention or deportation to other countries where they believe they will be persecuted. Others are told that they are being relocated only after boarding planes heading to the US and there is hardly any opportunity to communicate with family members and lawyers.
This is captured by these experiences, of disconnectability of high-level policy with ground-level outcomes. Law supporters emphasize that there should be open communication between the law and its review and availability of legal redress to the victims. Their continued litigation is not only to stop the illegal deportations, but also to raise awareness of the flaws in the international migration governance.
Efforts for policy reform
The advocacy groups are still urging the congress to offer oversight and impose judicial restrictions on the application of third-country deportations. Although there has been little legislative movement, the scrutiny is being heightened by public pressure and media coverage. Other policymakers have suggested legislation to stop the deportation to those nations where people are vulnerable to further immigration or injury, but they are yet to pass through the polarized political environment.
The institutions of the world are also considering reprisals. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has already launched an investigation into relocations to Ghana by the third countries and can make conclusions on how to protect the rights of migrants.
The convergence of US deportation policies and Ghana’s regional role reveals complex and evolving dynamics in global migration management. As geopolitical alliances shape enforcement strategies, the legal and ethical foundations of deportation practices face renewed scrutiny. The situation raises fundamental questions about accountability, sovereignty, and the protection of human dignity in an increasingly interconnected but unequal world. Whether future policies can reconcile national interests with international norms may define the next chapter of global migration governance.
