An immigration judge granted her request. But on November 5, she was deported to Ghana, another west African country. There, she said, she was detained at a hotel for six days before being forcibly returned to her home country. Video posted on social media at the time, verified by Kuyateh’s family, shows men in green and black uniforms dragging her across the hotel floor to a waiting van. “I’m not going!” she screams.

The video made headlines, putting Ghana in the middle of a heated debate over US President Donald Trump’s use of so-called third-country removals to hasten the departure of unauthorised immigrants who cannot easily be sent to their home countries, part of a vast crackdown that aims to deport millions.

Kuyateh, 58, was one of more than 30 third-country nationals deported by the US to Ghana last year, according to lawyers in both countries who filed lawsuits on their behalf. Of those, at least 22 were sent by Ghana to their home countries despite having obtained court-ordered protection in the US meant to prevent this from happening, according to a Reuters tally based on interviews with six lawyers, legal filings in both countries and complaints filed with the United Nations human rights office in Geneva.

The lawyers said Ghana’s repatriations appeared systematic and that none of their clients had opportunities to raise legal objections before being sent home. Reuters also found that Equatorial Guinea, an oil-rich Central African country, sent home at least three US deportees who had protection against this in the US, according to interviews with one of the migrants and two lawyers.

–Reuters–