Fourteen migrants were deported from the U.S. in September 2025. They landed unexpectedly in Ghana, and within days, eleven were detained at a military facility near the country’s southern capital of Accra.
Two weeks later, witnesses say the group was driven across the border into Togo and released without documents, money or legal status, the BBC reported.
“They were crying and repeating ‘it’s over’,” two of the deportees told The Guardian. Now, both are stranded in Togo without IDs and jobs.
“[They] were forced by armed military guards to climb wire fences,” added Samantha Hamilton, an attorney for Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC), a civil rights organisation which has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government on behalf of the migrants.
Behind the ordeal lies a controversial third-party deportation deal forged by U.S. President Donald Trump, under which nations agree to host deportees who have no ties to their territory. What began as a discreet arrangement to outsource migration enforcement with West African allies is now spreading toward Europe.
European countries are signing similar- and in some cases more aggressive- agreements that mirror the American strategy. In the first nine months of 2024, in fact, EU states issued over 300 thousand expulsion warrants in a move that has been intensified since the renewal of the Pact on Migration and Asylum, according to Al Jazeera.
The Pact’s four pillars include securing external borders; fast and efficient procedures; effective system of solidarity and responsibility; and embedding migration in international partnerships. Through agreements with third countries, EU legislators are seeking to support other nations’ border management, implement a tailor-made Anti-Smuggling Operational Partnership, and retain Talent Partnerships that allow non-Europeans to migrate.
Beyond a test case in Ghana
Ghanaian President John Mahama confirmed on September 6 that his government had accepted the U.S. deportees under a bilateral understanding that allows temporary housing of non-Ghanian nationals.
But the transfer quickly turned to chaos. Benjamin, a Nigerian national, told AFP that he had been staying in a single hotel room with three other deportees, surviving off of money sent by their families in the U.S. “The situation is terrible,” he said.
Benjamin further stressed that a judge had blocked his deportation to Nigeria in June, ruling that his political activities put him at risk. Yet, the government overruled his claims and sent him to Ghana. He had expected to be released to his wife and children, who are U.S. citizens.
Experts warn a similar situation is set to occur in Europe. A new report by Doctors Without Borders argues that the agreements the EU has established with third countries to limit the arrival of refugees and migrants have made routes longer and more dangerous, “leading to the deaths of thousands of people.”
This is not a new phenomenon. The EU concluded an agreement with Turkey in 2016 to limit arrivals in exchange for €6 billion, only a year after the pictures of three-year-old Alan Kurdi’s body in a Turkish beach caused outrage after he drowned while escaping civil war in Syria. Italy and Libya also signed a friendship agreement in 2008 to eradicate “clandestine immigration”, and Spain renewed ties with Morocco in 2023 to curb irregular immigration.
Read more: Germany set to deport Kurdish activist Mehmet Çakaş despite justice ministry’s previous decision
What is new, however, is the human cost precedent that the Trump administration has set.
Most of the so-called “third-party deportation” agreements result in deportees being sent to unfamiliar countries, conveniently shielding the U.S. and involved European countries from accountability for human rights violations, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The issue becomes more complex when it is developing nation allies or dependent partners who bear the brunt of these deportations, often in silence.
As Europe pushes forward with similar policies, the region faces a critical choice: replicating the model that displaces responsibility and fuels humanitarian crises, or building migration strategies that uphold legal standards and human dignity.
The chosen path will not only shape Europe’s migration landscape, but also its global standing amid allies and foes alike.
Featured image:
Image: Return hubs for EU migrants: why they are doomed to fail
Author: Sandor Csudai via The Loop
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