The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, says 22 Ghanaians are currently on the deportation list of the United States.
According to her, that is the only confirmed information the ministry has of Ghanaians who are in the process of being brought back into the country for flouting immigration rules in the US.
Responding to questions in Parliament over the alleged plans for the deportation of about 7,000 Ghanaians from the US, the sector minister said she cannot confirm that number since the US government has not been able to furnish the ministry with the list of the supposed Ghanaians being processed for deportation.
“The number of 7,000 and at some point of 3,000 was going around but unfortunately on several occasions, our request for the list of these Ghanaians we are told have flouted the immigration laws of the US have not been provided to us,” she said.
“At one point we were given a list of about 100 people and that was it. People who were being processed of the removal process, since then nothing has been given to us. As we speak now, [it’s] 22 persons who are in the process of being removed,” she added.
In June 2018, the then US Ambassador to Ghana, Robert Jackson, indicated that about 7,000 Ghanaians were to be deported for flouting various immigration rules.
Ghana faced threats of travel sanctions from the US if it failed to cooperate with the US in the supposed plans for Ghanaians to be deported.
But Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey says the diplomatic engagements between Ghana and the United States have been fruitful in resolving the issues.
