ACCRA: Nineteen West African nationals deported by the US to Ghana have been moved to an unknown location, a lawyer for one of the deportees said.
Ana Dionne-Lanier, who represents one of the nationals, told The Associated Press on Thursday the group arrived in Ghana on Nov. 5 and were put in a hotel. They are protected from deportation to their home countries due to the risk of torture, persecution or inhumane treatment, she said.
“We don’t know the location of any of them,” Dionne-Lanier said, adding that neither she nor her client’s family has been able to reach him.
She said part of the group was sent by bus to an unknown border location between last weekend and Monday, while a second group, which included her client, was moved “under heavy armed guard” from the hotel around Wednesday.
The Ghanaian government didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Dozens of deportees have been sent to Africa from the US since July after the Trump administration struck largely secretive agreements with at least five African nations — including Eswatini, Rwanda and South Sudan — to take migrants under a new third-country deportation program.
The Trump administration’s deportation program has faced widespread criticism from human rights experts, who cite international protections for asylum-seekers and question whether immigrants will be appropriately screened before being deported.
The administration has been seeking ways to deter immigrants from entering the US illegally and remove those who already have done so, especially those accused of crimes and including those who cannot easily be deported to their home countries.
Faced with court decisions that migrants can’t be sent back to their home countries, the Trump administration has increasingly been trying to send them to third countries under agreements with those governments.
Last month, the Ghanaian rights group Democracy Hub filed a lawsuit against Ghana’s government, alleging that its agreement with Washington is unconstitutional because it wasn’t approved by the Ghanaian parliament and that it may violate conventions that forbid sending people to countries where they could face persecution.
In September, the US Department of Justice argued in a federal court that it had no power to control how another country treats deportees. It said that Ghana had pledged to the US it wouldn’t send the deportees back to their home countries.
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19 migrants deported by US to Ghana have been moved to an unknown location, lawyer says
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19 migrants deported by US to Ghana have been moved to an unknown location, lawyer says
- “We don’t know the location of any of them,” Dionne-Lanier said
- Dozens of deportees have been sent to Africa from the US since July
Russia awaits an answer from the US on New START as nuclear treaty ticks down
- Russian leader Vladimir Putin has proposed keeping the treaty’s limits
- US President Donald Trump has said Putin’s proposal sounded ‘like a good idea’
MOSCOW: Russia on Wednesday said it was still awaiting a formal answer from Washington on President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to jointly stick to the last remaining Russian-US arms control treaty, which expires in less than two months.
New START, which runs out on February 5, caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.
Putin in September offered to voluntarily maintain for one year the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons set out in the treaty, whose initials stand for the (New) Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
Trump said in October it sounded “like a good idea.”
“We have less than 100 days left before the expiry of New START,” said Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s powerful Security Council, which is like a modern-day politburo of Russia’s most powerful officials.
“We are waiting for a response,” Shoigu told reporters during a visit to Hanoi. He added that Moscow’s proposal was an opportunity to halt the “destructive movement” that currently existed in nuclear arms control.
Nuclear arms control in peril
Russia and the US together have more than 10,000 nuclear warheads, or 87 percent of the global inventory of nuclear weapons. China is the world’s third largest nuclear power with about 600 warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
The arms control treaties between Moscow and Washington were born out of fear of nuclear war after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Greater transparency about the opponent’s arsenal was intended to reduce the scope for misunderstanding and slow the arms race.
US and Russia eye China’s nuclear arsenal
Now, with all major nuclear powers seeking to modernize their arsenals, and Russia and the West at strategic loggerheads for over a decade — not least over the enlargement of NATO and Moscow’s war in Ukraine — the treaties have almost all crumbled away. Each side blames the other.
In the new US National Security Strategy, the Trump administration says it wants to reestablish strategic stability with Russia” — shorthand for reopening discussions on strategic nuclear arms control.
Rose Gottemoeller, who was chief US negotiator for New START, said in an article for The Arms Control Association this month that it would be beneficial for Washington to implement the treaty along with Moscow.
“For the United States, the benefit of this move would be buying more time to decide what to do about the ongoing Chinese buildup without having to worry simultaneously about new Russian deployments,” Gottemoeller said.
New START, which runs out on February 5, caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.
Putin in September offered to voluntarily maintain for one year the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons set out in the treaty, whose initials stand for the (New) Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
Trump said in October it sounded “like a good idea.”
“We have less than 100 days left before the expiry of New START,” said Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s powerful Security Council, which is like a modern-day politburo of Russia’s most powerful officials.
“We are waiting for a response,” Shoigu told reporters during a visit to Hanoi. He added that Moscow’s proposal was an opportunity to halt the “destructive movement” that currently existed in nuclear arms control.
Nuclear arms control in peril
Russia and the US together have more than 10,000 nuclear warheads, or 87 percent of the global inventory of nuclear weapons. China is the world’s third largest nuclear power with about 600 warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
The arms control treaties between Moscow and Washington were born out of fear of nuclear war after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Greater transparency about the opponent’s arsenal was intended to reduce the scope for misunderstanding and slow the arms race.
US and Russia eye China’s nuclear arsenal
Now, with all major nuclear powers seeking to modernize their arsenals, and Russia and the West at strategic loggerheads for over a decade — not least over the enlargement of NATO and Moscow’s war in Ukraine — the treaties have almost all crumbled away. Each side blames the other.
In the new US National Security Strategy, the Trump administration says it wants to reestablish strategic stability with Russia” — shorthand for reopening discussions on strategic nuclear arms control.
Rose Gottemoeller, who was chief US negotiator for New START, said in an article for The Arms Control Association this month that it would be beneficial for Washington to implement the treaty along with Moscow.
“For the United States, the benefit of this move would be buying more time to decide what to do about the ongoing Chinese buildup without having to worry simultaneously about new Russian deployments,” Gottemoeller said.
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