“America is a bully that is never satisfied,” Oliver Barker-Vormawor said from Ghana.
The Trump administration’s new freeze on immigrant visas from 75 nations is the latest example, he added.
African nations make up a striking share of the 75 countries swept into the Trump administration’s new freeze on immigrant visas, a move officials say targets people “whose migrants take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates.”
There are 27 African countries on the 75-country visa suspension list.
The list includes Somalia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, and Ghana. (The federal government did not specify the percentage of immigrants from the affected countries who use public assistance.)
African governments and advocates say the visa freeze is landing on a continent already bearing the brunt of Washington’s harder line on migration and security.
Across West, East, and North Africa, the U.S. government has invested in “counterterrorism” partnerships and struck recent deportation agreements that have helped turn cities like Accra, Addis Ababa, and Mogadishu into waypoints in a global removal system, even as ordinary Africans face some of the strictest visa regimes in the world.
Barker-Vormawor, a civil rights activist and lawyer, argued that the U.S. “used us and dumped us in that bogus deportees deal” before turning around to hit Ghana with an even harsher visa ban. “Now that they got what they wanted, they have reimposed an even more aggressive visa ban on Ghana.”
The rebuke lands in a country that, in recent months, quietly agreed to help Washington solve its deportation headaches. Ghana has taken in planeloads of people expelled from the U.S., including some non-Ghanaians, under a deal lawyers and rights groups say stretched the limits of Ghana’s own laws.
“The correct response now for us is to impose reciprocal bans,” said Barker-Vormawor, about the next steps for African nations.
The Trump administration has also taken measures that could make it more difficult for immigrants from these countries already living in the U.S. to remain in the country.
Last year, deportations of people from African countries roughly tripled compared with the annual average during the Biden administration, according to a Capital B analysis of government data provided by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Likewise, the immigration-related arrests of African-born migrants have more than doubled, despite less than 40% of those arrested having a criminal record.
Many African countries included in the visa ban are already destabilized by conflict, debt, or climate shocks. This is now a new barrier for residents hoping to join family or pursue work and education in the U.S. The pause covers immigrant visas, choking off long-term pathways while leaving short-term tourist and business travel intact, a distinction critics say prioritizes people who are able to spend money in the country over resettlement, human rights, and family unity.
For William Yirenkyi, a Ghanaian man with dreams of migrating to the U.S. because of police abuse in Ghana, the ban is scary and confusing, he wrote through WhatsApp.
“What makes it worse is how unclear it is,” he wrote. “For many intended immigrants from developing countries, this still has real-life implications. Families are separated, livelihoods are disrupted, and all of this is happening through administrative decisions with little public debate.”
Ghana’s inclusion is especially jarring given its deepening cooperation with Washington on deportations and border enforcement. Those deals effectively turned Ghana into a conveyor belt for U.S. removals as deportees arrived in shackles, disappeared into unsafe facilities, and in some cases were pushed onward to countries they once fled. At the same time its leaders invited diaspora tourists and investors through campaigns like the “Year of Return.”
Now Ghanaians themselves are among those locked out. Under the new rules, people seeking to immigrate lawfully to reunite with family, work, or study are being cast as potential “public charges,” a label that can shut them out of visas before their cases are heard.
For Barker-Vormawor and other advocates, that sequence reinforces a view of the U.S. as a powerful partner happy to offload its deportation problems onto a smaller ally and then close the door when it is politically convenient, sharpening calls in Accra for reciprocal visa limits and a rethink of military cooperation.
Federal officials said that the pause would begin on Jan. 21.
Read more:
- Deportations of African Migrants Triple Under Trump’s Second Term
- Ghanaians Across Two Continents Are Living in Fear as U.S. Immigration Crackdowns Intensify
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.