A U.S. federal judge on Monday night sharply criticised the Trump administration for deporting five migrants from Nigeria and Gambia to Ghana, but ruled she lacked jurisdiction to hear a related lawsuit.
In a 16-page order, Washington, D.C.-based District Judge Tanya Chutkan said advocacy groups representing the migrants failed to show why the case should be brought before her court.
The Supreme Court had ruled in June that the Trump administration could deport migrants to third countries while a legal challenge proceeds before a lower court in Boston.
Still, Chutkan said the deportations of the West African migrants appeared to be an effort to sidestep U.S. immigration courts by sending them swiftly to another country.
“Defendants’ actions in this case appear to be taken in disregard of or despite its obligations to provide individuals present in the United States with due process and to treat even those who are subject to removal humanely,” she wrote.
The Trump administration has ramped up deportations of migrants to third countries in a bid to accelerate removals and force the departure of immigrants living illegally in the U.S.
Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama said last week his government had reached an agreement with Washington to accept West African deportees and had already received 14 people.
Tricia McLaughlin, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, rejected claims that the administration ignored immigration law by suddenly sending the migrants to Ghana.
“All of these illegal aliens deported to Ghana received due process and had a final order of removal from an immigration judge,” she said, adding that many had criminal convictions, including injury to a child, robbery, aggravated assault, and fraud.
According to the lawsuit, the five plaintiffs had U.S. legal protections against deportation to their home countries but were instead sent to Ghana, which planned to transfer them onward to Nigeria and Gambia. One migrant, a bisexual man, had already been deported to Gambia and was in hiding, the filing said.
Source: Reuters
