Deportees committed various offences – GIS

The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) on Thursday said it had received a total number of 63 Ghanaians, all males, who had been deported from the United States of America (USA) for committing various offences against the laws of the United States of America.

An official statement signed by DSI Michael Amoako-Atta, Acting Head of Public Affairs Unit of GIS and copied the Ghana News Agency, preliminary reports indicated that, some of the deportees had previously been indicted of drug offences, theft cases, whilst others who applied to seek for asylum, had their application refused hence their deportation.

The statement said the deportees were taken through disembarkation process and other formalities by the Service, and later handed over to the Bureau of National Investigations for debriefing and then to NADMO who gave them some stipends for transportation to their homes.

“The deportees landed at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) at about 0800 hours in the morning of Wednesday, June 14, 2017, onboard Special flight, Omini Air International flight number B762 from New York directly to Accra.

“In the same flight were some Liberian nationals who had also been indicted for similar offences and were been deported to their home country,” it added.

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removed 63 Ghanaian nationals to Ghana and 12 Liberian nationals to Liberia in accordance with their final orders of removal.”

Those removed, according to US Embassy statement, were found ineligible to remain in the United States for reasons including; overstaying their visas or committing crimes while in the United States.

They were ordered to be removed by an immigration judge, the Embassy said. “As mandated by law, ICE carried out their lawful removal orders”.

The statement explained that it was the U.S. Government’s policy to attempt to have individuals under removal orders return to their home countries by flying on regular commercial flights, except in special cases where flights were chartered.

“ICE Air Operations conducts special charter flights to accommodate certain individuals, including those who failed to cooperate with efforts to remove them via commercial flights.”

It said the U.S. Embassy worked to facilitate the legitimate travel of international visitors to the United States and the proper use of visas by Ghanaians, adding that the quick repatriation of deportees would contribute to the ability of the Embassy to facilitate the future travel of Ghanaians to the United States.