Ghana has received a group of 14 West African deportees from the United States, the country’s president said, joining Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan as African countries to receive deported migrants. “We agreed with (Washington) that West African nationals were acceptable because all our fellow West African nationals don’t need a visa to come to our country,” President John Mahama said at a news conference late Wednesday. Mahama confirmed that the deportees had arrived in the country and said they included Nigerian and Gambian nationals who planned to return to their countries. Ghana is the first West African country to announce it has agreed with the US to receive deported foreign nationals. US President Donald Trump, in his second term, has been aggressively cracking down on immigrants he says are criminals and from countries whose nationals have overstayed their visas in the US. Mahama did not say whether the 14 deportees had a criminal history.
“West Africa has a protocol of free movement. Any West African is welcome in Ghana,” Mahama said. In July, Trump hosted five West African presidents — from Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Gabon — at the White House to discuss whether the countries would be open to accepting deportees from the US. Nigeria, whose nationals comprise the bulk of deported migrants to Ghana, said at the time that African countries were under “significant pressure” to receive migrants and that it would not agree.