African migrants in the United States are being arrested and deported at rapidly escalating rates under President Donald Trump’s second term, even though most have no criminal record. 

A Capital B analysis of government data provided by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shows that deportations of people from African countries are on pace to nearly triple this year compared with the annual average during the Biden administration. Likewise, the immigration-related arrests of African-born migrants have more than doubled, despite less than 40% of those arrested having a criminal record.

The fallout is transforming daily life in countries like Ghana that are absorbing a sudden influx of returnees.

Some of that surge is being routed through little‑known transfer deals with African governments that agreed to receive deportees from non-native residents. Some of the countries involved in this agreement, like Ghana and Uganda, have accepted citizens of other African nations as well as citizens of Asian and South and Central American countries. As a result, deportees have been held in countries where they have no ties, often in deplorable conditions. In November, Capital B reported that a non-native West African woman deported to Ghana attempted suicide while under the supervision of Ghanaian detention officers. 

​These numbers and arrangements reveal an expanding, outsourced enforcement regime that is quietly reshaping African diaspora communities in the U.S. and deepening what advocates describe as a “shadow system” of migration control. 

As Zaria Goicochea of Cornell Law School’s Transnational Disputes Clinic put it, “Outsourcing migration control does not absolve the United States of its human‑rights obligations,” adding that “African states have an independent duty not to accept transfers under bilateral agreements that put people at risk.” Her colleague Tara Nouri warned that “these agreements entrench a shadow system of migration control, undermining fundamental human‑rights guarantees in the process.”

Organizers with the Movement for Black Lives argue that Black migrants in the U.S. — who now account for 10% of the Black population and 7.2% of all non‑citizens — are “disproportionately demonized and targeted for violence and exclusion” at every step, from militarized borders and interior raids to “detention under inhuman conditions” and forced returns to danger.

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Adam Mahoney is the climate and environment reporter at Capital B. He can be reached by email at adam.mahoney@capitalbnews.org, on Bluesky, and on X at @AdamLMahoney.