US government deports 40 Ghanaians

Forty Ghanaians aged between 21-70 years have been deported from the United States of America (USA).

The deportees made up of 38 males and two females arrived on board a chartered flight, Omni Air International Boeing 777 – OAE 328, Monday.

Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA), Assistant Superintendent of Immigration (ASI), Barbara Sam confirmed the arrival in a statement.

She said two of the deportees travelled with their Ghanaian passports while 38 others were with Travel Certificate (TC) issued by the Ghana Mission in Washington, DC.

The 40 deportees were said to have been engaged in various offences, ranging from drug possession, larceny, assault, theft, sexual assault, identity theft, illegal entry, forgery/fraud, resisting arrest and other non-criminal offences.

Upon arrival at the KIA, they were taken through the required disembarkation process chief among which is authenticating their nationalities.

Present at the airport were GIA officials, as well as other security agencies including the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO).

NADMO was on hand to ensure that the deportees had onward transportation to their respective destinations.

Ghana’s Ambassador to the U.S., Dr Barfuor Adjei-Bawuah, has been caught in a cat and mouse game with the American authorities piling pressure on him to sanction the deportation of 7000 of Ghanaians.

He has described as unfair pressure on him to give his approval for hundreds of Ghanaians to be sent home for violating U.S. immigration laws.

“It leaves me with difficulty to sanction the deportation of my citizen and I have been trying hard to explain this to the authorities,” he told Joy News’ Elton John Brobbey last year.

The Foreign Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, has insisted Ghana will not facilitate the deportations following weeks of diplomatic pressure from the US.

According to her, the US wants an agreement with Ghana to deport illegal immigrants within 24 hours on a chartered flight. They also want the Ghana government to issue a certain number of travel documents per week.

The US government has not hidden its feelings about the presence of illegal immigrants since Donald Trump took office as president.

Already the US has imposed visa restriction on some categories of government officials for refusing to accept some 7000 individuals marked for deportation to Ghana