Trump Admin Hit With New Lawsuit, Claims Migrants Held In 'Straightjackets'

Sep 12, 2025 at 5:53 PM EDT

By Dan Gooding

Politics Reporter, Newsweek

A lawsuit filed Friday on behalf of immigrants deported by the Trump administration to Ghana said they were held in "straightjackets" and shackled for 16 hours.

The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleged that the plaintiffs had been held for days in "squalid conditions" in an open-air detention facility.

Newsweek reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the group behind the suit, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, for comment via email Friday afternoon.

Why It Matters

The filing is the latest in a string of legal challenges to the way the Trump administration has carried out its immigration policies, including attempts to block removals to countries immigrants are not citizens of.

The Trump administration has insisted that it is seeking to deport individuals who have broken immigration laws, and often committed additional crimes.

What To Know

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of five migrants, says passengers were awoken in the middle of the night on September 5 and were not told where they were going until hours into the flight on a U.S. military cargo plane.

The migrants have been detained for five days in Ghana in "squalid conditions and surrounded by armed military guards in an open-air detention facility," called Dema Camp, the complaint says. Conditions are "abysmal and deplorable," with tents for shelter and little running water.

The migrants are not from Ghana and have been told they will be sent to other countries that have been determined to be too dangerous by U.S. immigration judges — making it the latest legal challenge to the Trump administration's practice of sending people to countries other than their own, including El Salvador, Panama, Costa Rica and several African nations.

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The lawsuit was filed a day after Ghana's president confirmed the arrival of the 14 deportees. Ghana joined Eswatini, Rwanda and South Sudan as African countries that have received migrants from third countries who were deported from the U.S., an approach whose legality has been questioned by lawyers and human rights organizations.

None of the 14 deportees were originally from Ghana, and the five West Africans who filed the lawsuit did not have ties with the country or designate it as a potential country of removal, according to the complaint.

Plaintiffs are identified only by initials in the complaint. Four are "in immediate danger of being sent on, within hours, to their countries." One has already been removed to The Gambia and is in hiding, despite having "repeatedly stated his fear" of returning to his country.

Three plaintiffs are from Nigeria and two from The Gambia. The lawsuit says 14 West Africans were taken from their cells at an ICE detention center in Alexandria, Louisiana.

An emergency hearing took place on Friday, with U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan accusing the Trump administration of being underhanded in its handling of the case.

What People Are Saying

The complaint: "Defendants have enlisted the government of Ghana to do their dirty work. Despite the minimal, pass-through involvement of the Ghanaian government, Defendants' objective is clear: deport individuals who have been granted fear-based relief from being sent to their countries of origin to those countries anyway, in contravention to the rulings of U.S. immigration judges and U.S. immigration law."

Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary, told Newsweek in a statement on third-country removals in July: "It is incredibly important to make sure we get these worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens out of our country. As Secretary Noem has said, if an illegal alien's home country is not taking them, they're not taking them for a reason: they are dangerous criminals."

What's Next

The complaint, filed by lawyers for Asian Americans Advancing Justice, asks the judge to immediately halt deportations to their countries of origin. Chutkan is weighing what powers she has, with the deportees already out of the U.S.

Reporting by The Associated Press contributed to this story.