Donald Trump’s administration appears to have deliberately deported five West African men to Ghana knowing they would be sent to “dire circumstances” in countries where they could be tortured or killed, according to a federal judge.
District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C. has determined that the Trump administration is engaged in a “pattern and widespread effort” to similarly deport immigrants to so-called “third” countries, only to have those countries send them elsewhere — despite U.S. court orders preventing that from happening.
But Chutkan said her “hands are tied” when it comes to trying to get those men back because they are now in the custody of Ghana’s government.
“The court does not reach this conclusion lightly,” she wrote.
“It is aware of the dire consequences Plaintiffs’ face if they are repatriated,” she wrote. “And it is alarmed and dismayed by the circumstances under which these removals are being carried out, especially in light of the government’s cavalier acceptance of Plaintiffs’ ultimate transfer to countries where they face torture and persecution. But its hands are tied.”
At least one man has been deported to another country, and as many as four others are jailed in a prison camp awaiting transfer to Nigeria or The Gambia.
Chutkan’s late-night ruling Monday followed rapid developments in a lawsuit from the men, who accused the administration of illegally deporting them earlier this month — making the 16-hour journey in “straitjackets” — in an attempt to avoid court orders that blocked them from going back to their home countries.
When those men reached Ghana, they were told that they would be quickly transferred to their home countries, despite protective orders issued by immigration court judges that prevented them from returning overs fear of persecution, torture and death.
The lawsuit accuses administration officials of enlisting Ghana’s government “to do their dirty work.”
“Despite the minimal, pass-through involvement of the Ghanaian government, [the Trump administration’s] objective is clear: deport individuals who have been granted fear-based relief from being sent to their countries of origin to those countries anyway, in contravention to the rulings of U.S. immigration judges and U.S. immigration law,” according to the complaint.
The Independent has requested comment from Homeland Security
“What you’re doing, what appears to be happening, is truly disingenuous,” Chutkan told government lawyers during a hearing Friday.
The administration’s actions “appear to be taken in disregard of or despite its obligations” to due process “and to treat even those who are subject to removal humanely,” according to Chutkan’s order.
“These actions also appear to be part of a pattern and widespread effort to evade the government’s legal obligations by doing indirectly what it cannot do directly,” she wrote.
The administration resumed a policy of deporting immigrant detainees to so-called third countries in July, starting with the tiny African nation of Eswatini.
The administration recently threatened to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to four different countries within the span of less than two weeks, beginning shortly after he was released from federal custody in Tennessee only to land in an immigration detention center in Maryland a few days later.
After orders from federal judges and the Supreme Court directed the administration to “facilitate” his return from a Salvadoran prison earlier this year, Abrego Garcia was eventually brought back to the United States — only to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee, as the Trump administration revives another attempt to deport him.
Immigration officials outlined a plan for his removal to Costa Rica if he agreed to plead guilty to human smuggling charges. If he didn’t, he could be sent to Uganda.
Officials also suggested he could be sent back to his home country of El Salvador if he successfully reopens a case for asylum in the United States. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials later said he will be sent to Eswatini.
In her order, Chutkan noted that the cases of the African men and Abrego Garcia are part of a “series of deportations which signal a drastic change of course” from the government’s obligations to due process.
“In several cases, authorities have rounded up — often at night and with little or no notice — men, women, and children being held in detention facilities, hastily put them on planes and transferred them to other countries, where they have no connections, do not speak the language, and are unable to contact family or counsel,” she said.
