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U.S. kicks out 86 Ghanaians, hints of more deportations

U.S. kicks out 86 Ghanaians, hints of more deportations

Ghana

A total of eighty-six Ghanaians were on Wednesday deported from the United States of America. The all-male contingent were arrested across the U.S. for offences such as abuse of terms of their visas and engaging in illegal employment, the local Finder newspaper reported.

The deportees arrived at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) on a chartered flight and were screened by immigration officials before being allowed to rejoin their families.

The report added that only four of the deportees had passports, the remaining 82 without the international travel document had travel certificates. Reports indicate that others will soon be handed a similar treatment.

A breakdown of the returnees showed that people living in the regional capital (Greater Accra) and the resource-rich middle belt Ashanti region dominated the list with 37 and 24 persons respectively.

Seven other regions contributed the remaining deportees. Only one southern region – the Central Region – did not have a candidate in the contingent.

In 2017, the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, Robert Jackson, disclosed that the Trump administration was set to deport 7,000 plus Ghanaians who have abused the terms of their visas. At the time, he said the potential deportees were at different stages of the process.

“In fact, about 7,000 of them are currently at different stages of the deportation process. And we are not apologetic about that,” he said.

1,968 Ghanaians were deported from across the world in 2016, more than double the figure in 2015, 723. The desire to leave the country in search for greener pastures has seen young people opt to pay huge sums to visa contractors.

The country – one of the stable nations democratically and economically – across the West African sub region continues to cement gains made with economic growth. Ghana is likely to have one of the world’s fastest-growing economies this year, according to the World Bank.

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