Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has dismissed international media reports suggesting that the United States plans to deport a Salvadoran national, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to Ghana.
Several foreign outlets reported on Friday, October 10, 2025, that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intended to deport Abrego Garcia, who was previously wrongly deported to El Salvador and later returned to the U.S., to Ghana after earlier considering Eswatini and Uganda.
However, in a Facebook post, Mr. Ablakwa clarified that Ghana will not be accepting Abrego Garcia, stressing that the country’s position on the matter has been “directly and unambiguously conveyed to U.S. authorities.”
“In my interactions with U.S. officials, I made clear that our understanding to accept a limited number of non-criminal West Africans, purely on the grounds of African solidarity and humanitarian principles, would not be expanded,” he wrote.
He further described the reports as “misleading,” insisting that Ghana’s agreement with the United States does not include accepting nationals from outside the West African region.
In September 2025, Ghana agreed to accept non-Ghanaian West African nationals deported from the U.S. on humanitarian grounds, a move that sparked domestic controversy. The first batch of 14 deportees, including Nigerians and a Gambian, arrived in Ghana last month and have since been repatriated to their respective countries.
The Minority Caucus in Parliament has since opposed the deal, describing it as unconstitutional and a potential national security risk, arguing that it was not ratified by Parliament as required under the 2017 Supreme Court ruling on international agreements.